Charmed Heritage: 117 Something In the Water
by StoryGirl83
Summary: A mysterious disease sweeps past every barrier and quarantine, seemingly striking its victims at random, but not one magical being is sick. What is behind this disease and can someone stop it before it kills everyone without magic?
1. What Makes a Warlock

Something In the Water

Prologue – What Makes a Warlock

April 27, 1637

* * *

A/N – I apologize for the lack of historically accurate language. If anyone reading this knows how to make the language sound more like the 1630s in colonial New England, please contact me.

* * *

The rain dripped down from the sky in a drizzle that barely justified taking cover. Rebecca Warren didn't bother trying. She cradled her baby son, Samuel, in her arms as she wept over a newly dug grave. A wooden cross with crudely etched letters was the only thing marking the grave of her beloved husband. It held only the barest info, her husband's name and the years he lived. Thirty two years was all the time Patrick Aaron Warren had been given before he was falsely accused and convicted of theft.

This new land, this America, was supposed to be a land of opportunity, but two weeks off the boat and she had seen nothing but heartache. Their three-year-old daughter, Caroline, had died on the boat and their older son, David, had been blinded in an accident only two days after they had arrived.

Now, it was Patrick who lay dead. Someone had accused him of stealing a bolt of cloth from Goody Westmont, a widow who made a living as a seamstress for the rest of the village. The cloth had been found in their home, but Rebecca could not believe Patrick had been responsible. The townsfolk had been far too eager to lay blame on the new comer though. In time they would learn that Patrick had not been the one responsible for this crime, but it would come far too late for her beloved.

When Samuel began to protest the uncomfortable position that Rebecca had him in, she finally stood and began the walk back to town. She needed to pick up David from one of the few neighbors who hadn't turned their back on her after Patrick had been accused. David enjoyed playing with their two children, Franklyn and Anne.

Rebecca hadn't gone very far when she heard voices on the other side of some bushes. She would have continued, but one word caught her attention. Since she had arrived, she had gotten the impression that someone was using magic to alter events, but they hadn't been directed at any one person.

She cradled Samuel close to her chest as she walked over to where the sound came from. In a clearing Goody Richmond addressed her family. Her three daughters, two sons, and seven grandchildren surrounded a platform of some type on which Goody Richmond stood.

"'Tis time to begin," Goody Richmond announced to her children. "She has arrived on her own."

Rebecca gulped. It was time to leave. Her sons needed a mother. She hadn't gotten more than two steps, when she was knocked to the ground by an invisible force. After taking a second to make sure Samuel was unharmed, she scrambled to her feet. She started running, but was quickly knocked from her feet, again.

"'Tis such a shame," Louisa Chambers told her brother, William Richmond. "I was hoping for more of a struggle.

Rebecca looked down at Samuel and placed him on the ground. Placing one hand on the ground in front of her she glared up at the siblings.

The ground began to tremble. A wall of dirt built up in front of Louisa and William. As they began trying to get around the dirt wall, Rebecca put her other hand down on the ground between her and Samuel. The ground began to shake and a river of dirt began moving her son toward town and hopefully safety. She continued battling the siblings as she pushed her son farther and farther away. If she got up her power would cease to work, so little bit by little bit she scooted backward. Hopefully by the time she was forced to drop the wall of dirt she would have put enough space between her and Goody Richmond's offspring.

She was getting close to the edge of town when it was brought home rather forcefully that Louisa and William weren't the only members of their family. Ice shot out from George Richmond's hands hitting Rebecca with an ice spray and quickly enveloping her in ice.

Elisa Richmond, the youngest of Goody Richmond's children, watched her older brother with an amused look. "Well done, George. Now, she dies."

George put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. "Mother needs her for the spell."

Elisa looked at the frozen woman in front of her. She scowled. "Louisa, George says we have to bring her to mother. Do the honors, please?"

As soon as Rebecca had been frozen, Louisa and William had followed her trail and now stood a few feet away. Louisa waved her arm and sent the frozen Rebecca sliding back toward the clearing were their family waited. The four siblings walked back to the clearing.

Elisa conjured a knife and ran her finger along the blade as she walked up to the platform her mother was on. She looked down at the small body of a little girl on the platform. "Why could she die, but 'twas not allowed for her mother to die?"

"The blood of the child needn't be fresh," Willamina Richmond told her youngest. "It only needs to be magical and unfortunately the two boys don't seem to have any magic in them. They are the first witches to cross our paths in over a decade. If we want this, we cannot let this opportunity pass."

"Still," Marie Michaels, Willamina's oldest daughter, complained, "'twas rather bothersome to have to locate the body of the dead child and fish her out of the ocean. Whoever thought to bury the dead at sea should be cursed."

"They are likely long dead themselves," Willamina reminded her. "Stay focused, dear."

"Where's the baby?" William asked looking at the frozen form of Rebecca.

George shrugged. "We have no need of him. He's not magical, so he'll die soon enough."

Louisa sprinkled a powder around the outline of Caroline Warren's dead body. Once she was satisfied that there were no escape routes she stepped away from the altar.

Elisa rubbed her finger along her knife as she eyed the child eagerly.

Marie walked over to where her three children and the four belonging to the older three of her siblings stood. She took a basket of dead flowers from her older daughter. As she placed flowers around the child an inch apart, careful to make sure that the petals touched the powder, she spoke to her younger sister. "Elisa, patience. Mother's spell will give us immortality."

"'Twill strip us of the petty morality that plagues normal witches," Louisa added.

"I know," Elisa scowled. "I just want to use my knife."

"You will," William assured her.

"What if mother's wrong?" Elisa commented, looking her mother in the eye. "I want to be a warlock as much as the next witch, but they've been an extinct breed for a thousand years."

"'Tis very clear," Willamina assured her youngest. "Clearly the witches in that time have been pathetic excuses of evil."

"'Tis unlikely that there have been no warlocks in that time," George commented.

"If there were they made no mark on the world," William shot back. "We've no evidence of them."

"Likely that is because they have been oppressed and no one has explained to them the true power of being a warlock," Marie informed her brothers. "We'll make our mark on the world. We will lead in a new era."

"And what of my vision?" William asked. "I don't imagine these things."

"It does seem rather unlikely," Marie shook her head. "After all, a woman in breeches. 'Tis scandalous."

"I think I'd like that," Elisa commented. "Men get . . . very distracted . . . when they see too much of a lady."

"You're no lady," George scoffed.

"I wouldn't expect thee to understand," Elisa replied.

Marie put down the last flower and stepped away from the altar. "William? George?"

Her brothers took Rebecca's frozen body and moved it onto the altar next to her daughter's dead body. George held out his hands and the ice returned to them as William with the help of Marie's son, Oliver Michaels, held Rebecca in place. They straightened out the struggling woman and George held out his hands again. He froze Rebecca again, but this time he left her head unfrozen.

"Silence her tongue," Louisa directed her son, Charles Chambers.

Charles waved his hand at Rebecca and her mouth and tongue stopped moving. Sounds emitted from her throat, but no discernible words.

Louisa smiled. "Thank thee, Charles."

"Begin," Willamina directed her offspring.

In one voice the thirteen evil witches chanted, "Blood of the offspring flows as a flood."

Elisa took her knife and ran it down Caroline's body starting at her throat. The blood had long since ceased to flow, but the spell seemed to call at it and the blood flowed out of her body saturating the powder surrounding her small body.

"Death begins anew, cloaked within a hood."

The dead flowers touching the powder turned from brown to a brilliant red.

"Water drinkable only by the magical few."

A thin red liquid spread out from the stems of the flowers and flowed toward the edge of the altar. Much of it ran into Rebecca and flowed around her as the sounds of horrified screams came out of her mouth.

"Death's cold lips kiss the untrue. Time flows on and the poison spread."

The red liquid seeped into the ground looking for a water source.

"Until the whole mortal world lies dead."

A purple smoke emitted from a nearby well bringing a smile to Willamina's lips.

"This offering I give as my appeal. With a witch's death seal this deal."

Elisa took her knife and plunged it through the ice into Rebecca's heart. A serene look crossed her face as she brought the knife up to her nose and took in a deep breath. "I could get used to this."

* * *

Nothing ever said that Melinda Warren's magic came from her mother. Yes, magic is supposed to only be in the women of their line, and I have kept that. David and Samuel have no magical abilities. They also have the same immunities of other witches. Good witches cannot use their powers on them. And if something doesn't affect the magical, they are safe. Charlotte said that Melinda was the first Warren born in America. So I made sure none of the children from this family were born on American soil.


	2. Until the Whole World Dies

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Soraya - I have been told that I need to have more bare-chested Wyatt and/or Chris scenes. I've also been told I need to do so in more detail. Since I usually do such things from some point of view, and usually it's just them or just one of them, that has not happened. However, in time it could happen. *Amusing myself with the idea of how various characters might react to that* Maybe I need to take them swimming or something. We'll see. Siblings are fun. As to serious sibling fights, you will get those. The first one that comes to mind is more one sided, since the other brother is . . . unconscious at the time. *Imagines Chris reaction to something . . . yeah, that could cause some issues. Oh! I know. In one episode coming up in a while, Wyatt leaves while they are trying to find someone. Chris thinks one thing and Wyatt doesn't think he should risk telling Chris what he is up to. I'm sure there will be plenty of fights. So far I think the most I've gotten of that is the chapter with Emily and her brothers, but that's not anywhere near what you . . . oh! Yes, if we aren't being picky about what set of siblings, there is definitely something coming up. I'm glad you found the scenes with Cassia and the others enlightening. As to the other elder, you will eventually learn who he is and he's not actually being mean . . . well, not in the long run. He knows things that Kevin doesn't and you will see how that turns out. And yes, Ron is definitely one messed up dude. Since he got put into a mental hospital not once but twice (first as Cassia, then as himself) I needed to do that. He's older than Jen and Alex and twenty years in a girl's body did not sit well with him.

No, that is not correct. The Warren line has not at any point (other than maybe P. Russell) been warlocks. The Richmond family is using the blood of Rebecca and her daughter, Caroline, to turn the Richmond family into Warlocks. And the Richmonds did not lose their powers. They just gained immortality and more or less lost their souls. I say more or less, because it's not complete . . . not that you would know from Elisa. That girl is creepy. I have a rather long backstory for the Warren line prior to Melinda Warren. It is far too long to put here and I have an entire planned to explain it. That story cannot be told at present, because there are some secrets in it. I will sprinkle details around here and there. There is at least one in "My Curse on You", but you will likely have to figure out what that is in retrospect. For the purpose of this story what is relevant is that Rebecca's family is from a long line of witches and due to something that happened a very long time before (part of the story) only the women in her family have magical powers. The last man to have magical powers in her line was named Atticus. Occationally a man will slip into their line that has magical powers, but only when there is some other magical line directly involved. The sons can pass on the magical heritage. Anyway, Rebecca married Patrick Warren, a man with no magical abilities and they had three children. David and Samuel with the usual lack of abilities and Caroline with an ability that isn't needed for this story (considering she was dead even before the prologue.) I'm not sure that explains everything, but the warlocks are definitely the Richmonds not the Warrens.

Stacey - *Smilies* Glad you enjoyed the last chapter. Those are always fun. Yes, Ron is very messed up. As to the elder, you might like him by the end of this all. Grant you what he did was definitely mean in the short term, but if you knew why he did it . . . unfortunately for now I won't be revealing that because it would open too many questions that are very far in the future. I will tell you something about him, though. In part two of "Morality Bites 2: Biting Back" Hank spoke of an elder who rescued him from other elders. This is the same elder. I'm with you on the scene Andrew told, but unfortunately there was something that didn't work quite right. Right now, I forget just what it was. But since I did enjoy it so much, I wanted to share it. Emily and Addison. I am going to have so much fun with those two. Emily is absolutely sure that something is wrong with Addison, but she has no idea that Addison is a witch. Addison on the other hand couldn't care less about Emily's opinion of her and she knows Emily knows about magic, so it will be a lot of fun for me. I'm glad that you think my usage of the language wasn't too terribly done. As there is a little more of such langague in chapters yet written, I will keep in mind what you said.

In this story, time is a very important thing. This next chapter takes place over the course of several days and sets up the stage for the rest of the story. For this chapter dates will be printed about each section to show the passage of time. There are a lot of important and very subtle things. Something that at first seems perfectly innocent might be the clue that is needed to solve everything. In the chapters following this one, each will have an approximate time. If the chapter takes place somewhere other than San Francisco, there will be a second time in parenthasis that tells you what time it is wherever the scene is. There are some times that are exact, but most are just approximate.

Each of the scenes in this chapter are chosen for a reason. They show the progession of both the "disease" as well as how the situation affects the Halliwells. Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Chapter One – Until the Whole World Dies

Tuesday, April 27, 2027

Time has a way of bringing decay. An old shack a mile or so outside of Duxbury, Massachusetts looked like it had seen its fair amount of time. Everything within it was old and broken down.

There was a table that have lost two of its legs. Broken pottery and food so molded even the mold had died lay on the floor at the broken end. Most of the items lay broken or decayed. Time had not been good to them.

One a wobbly end table a clock that had long since quit ticking sat perched. It looked as if it would begin a downward decent any second, but it moved not an inch.

Then, a curious think happened. The hands of the clock started to move. Slowly at first and then faster with every second that past, the clock turned in a counter clockwise direction. The backward movement counted back seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years until thirteen decades had been counted. And when it had counted back the last second of those thirteen decades it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Through the broken glass of the window a well could be seen and from it a purple smoke drifted out. At the window, as if she had always been there, a tiny girl peered out. Through her body objects on her other side could be just made out as if she wasn't quite there. She turned her little head, sadness in her eyes, and to a woman who had most certainly not been there a minute before she said, "Mama, 'tis 'ap'nin', 'gain."

* * *

Friday, April 30, 2027

The Trudeau residence was rather quiet as Vicki Trudeau made her way into the kitchen. She stretched up and opened the cupboard to grab out a bowl. Over the next couple of minutes she collected a spoon, a box of her favorite cereal, a jug of milk, and a glass. She carried the items into the living room and spread them out on the floor.

"Time?" she absently asked.

A clock in the wall of the apartment flickered on and a voice stated, "The time is now oh five-hundred-fifty-nine."

"Perfect," she practically purred as she flopped down onto a bean pillow she had arranged on the floor. "TV on. Volume fifteen. Station four-ninety-seven. Begin."

She was about five minutes into her favorite television show, a show that had never aired in the other reality, but had been running only reruns for over fifteen years, when it was interrupted. Vicki glared at the screen as a map of eastern Massachusetts filled it.

"The area in and around Duxbury has been put under quarantine," a disembodied voice announced. "It is unknown what is causing the quick spreading disease, but it has been only two days since the first case was spotted and there are already over six hundred confirmed cases. Be advised to avoid the city until further notice. Doctor's are doing everything they can to contain and diagnose the disease."

Vicki stared at the screen startled. Duxbury was less than an hour's drive from there. The man on the screen described the symptoms and then he listed off disease after disease that had already been eliminated. It seemed that the medical community couldn't even figure out how the disease was spread.

As soon as the announcement finished Vicki ordered the TV off as she ran out of the room, down the hall, and into her parents' room. Her parents would keep her safe, wouldn't they?

* * *

Tuesday, May 4, 2027

Wyatt had been at the hospital for over ten hours. He slipped into the break room and sank down into a chair.

"Coffee?" Helen Hensley, one of the hospital's nurses, asked him.

Wyatt took it from her with a smile.

"I heard they roped you in here," she commented. "Did your boss mind?"

Wyatt shook his head. "Half the museum staff is here in the hospital. Hal closed down until further notice. It's not like anyone was breaking down the door to get in anyway." He took a sip of the coffee and put the cup down on the end table next to him.

"How're you holding up?" she asked. "I heard your uncle's got a pretty bad case."

Wyatt hung his head down and sighed. "My aunt Prue's going pretty crazy. She wanted to bring my cousins out here, but there aren't any airlines running." He looked up at her, sadly. "You?"

"My family's all out here," she informed him, "but yeah, a few of them have come down with it. People quit saying how lucky we were that they just had mild cases, when people started dying yesterday."

Wyatt nodded, dejected. "Hard to think anyone's lucky after that."

"The death count just keeps getting bigger and nothing we do helps," she moaned. "They still don't even know how people are getting it. And it doesn't match up with anything in their database."

"Four-hundred-seventeen," Wyatt mumbled.

"What?"

"That's the latest death count," he informed her. "A four-year-old died in Weymouth five minutes ago." He looked so tired, so weary.

"The last I had heard was three-sixty-four," she whispered. "That was less than an hour ago."

He took another sip of the coffee and said nothing.

"I got to get back to work," Helen announced suddenly. "I hope your uncle gets better."

Wyatt offered her a weak smile. "Thanks, Helen. Your family, too."

"Thanks," she replied before she headed back into the hospital to see to the comfort of the sick. There was nothing they could do to heal them, because they had no idea what was making them sick.

As she closed the door behind her Wyatt sipped the rest of the coffee. This had better be regular, because it was going to be a while before he had time for sleep. He looked down at his hands. He'd been told that sometimes whitelighters could heal disease, but if it weren't for the broken leg he'd accidentally healed earlier, he would have thought his healing power was broken. It hadn't affected anyone who was sick.

* * *

Thursday, May 6, 2027 4AM

The attic in the manor was unusually busy or rather unusually full. Half a dozen teenagers lay sound asleep on the couch and the floor. Hank Mitchell stood in front of the podium that held the Book of Shadows. As of five minutes before he had looked at every page in the book twice. That didn't, of course, mean that he had read them all, but he'd looked at them.

"Want me to take over?" Hank's cousin, Hope Halliwell offered.

Hank shook his head. "There's nothing in here, no point in you wasting time looking. We'll need to find another source."

"What if there is no other source?" she looked at him concerned. "Not every demon or evil spell out there has shown up before. There's a first time for everything."

He closed the Book and looked at her. "It's not new. This has happened before."

But where's your proof," she asked. "We asked Uncle Leo and he didn't remember anything like this."

"He also didn't remember when James Thomas kidnapped all those kids in 1927," he pointed out.

"He wasn't even three yet," she protested.

"Exactly," Hank agreed. "If this happened when he was young or before he was born, he wouldn't know anything about it."

"Yow asked Ava's kids," she added. "They're pretty old."

"Yes, but they didn't spend much time out of the alternate dimension James Thomas created," Hank pointed out.

Hope frowned as she thought. "Well, what about your grandpa? What did he say?"

"I haven't been able to reach him," Hank admitted. "He doesn't exactly have a phone number."

Hope sighed. "Do we know anyone older than that?"

"The elders," was his mumbled reply.

She wrinkled her nose. "That means going Up There. I sure can't do that."

"Neither can I," he informed her.

"But I thought . . ."

He shrugged. "I can orb. I just can't seem to orb Up There."

"Have you ever tried before?"

He shook his head. "I've never had that need before."

"Your mom's downstairs," Hope pointed out. "We can ask her to go Up There and ask. If you'll do that, I'm going to wake Cilly so I can ask her to go see the cupids. They've been around a very long time. Maybe they know something."

"According to your dad they don't pay a whole lot of attention to world events unless they pertain directly to love," he reminded her.

Hope frowned. "Well, I think nearly two thousand dead in the eastern US and Canada along with over four million sick from an unknown disease would catch their attention."

Hank moaned. "Every day just gets worse."

"We can't let this go on another day," she moaned. "All these people. A week ago no one was sick. Now there are millions scattered over the entire continent. How soon before South America's infected, too?"

"I'd say that's a sure bet," Hank informed her. "There have been cases reported on the western coast of Europe. There's little doubt that people in South America are either infected or will be soon."

Hope's bottom lip quivered. "I don't want to lose Uncle Leo or Uncle Andy."

Hank wrapped her up in his arms. "We know this is magical, that's a start."

"Only if we find a cure," she looked up at him sadly. "Every hour more people die and every minute more people get sick."

"Then, let's quit looking through the Book of Shadows for something we know isn't there," he decided. "You wake your sisters and have Cilly go ask the cupids. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know something. Then, go find out where Chris is. He's going to start calling a lot of whitelighters until we find someone who knows something useful. I'll go get my mom and ask her to go Up There. Then, I'll wake my sisters. We don't just sit idly by and do nothing. We are going to find this cure and we are going to do it today."

Hope smiled up at him and wiggled out of his arms. He let go of her instantly and she headed over to where Cilly lay asleep on the floor by the couch.

As Hank headed toward the attic door he tried to hide his feelings. _Please let me be right._ Besides his two uncles, he had classmates who were sick, neighbors, and there was a girl he liked who was sick. He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't let his cousin see just how scared he was.

* * *

In the course of just over a week, millions of people are sick with some unknown disease that has something to do with what happened in 1637. So in recap: In the Halliwell family no one magical is sick. Leo and Andy are sick, but not Victor or Henry. Despite a lack of any magical powers Hope and Pat still count as magical. If you want to know about any specific non magical character's health, just ask . . . I've got a list of who's sick and who's not.

As of the end of this chapter the Halliwells are in the following places:

Prue is at the hospital at Andy's bedside. The girls are asleep in the lobby of the hospital. They are still in Boston.  
Piper is at Leo's side in the hospital in San Francisco. Wyatt is volunteering there, helping try to keep people at least comfortable. (Helen, the nurse he was talking to, is now among the sick.) Chris is at the hospital to visit Leo. Melinda got him to orb her back to San Francisco. She has been at the hospital for the last twenty hours.  
Phoebe's still missing (no surprise there) along with Coop, but all three of their girls are in the attic.  
Paige is in the manor, currently trying to make something for herself and the six teens to eat for breakfast (despite the early hour. She figured everyone's up, so why not). All three of her kids are also upstairs. Henry, however, is at the police department, where they only have had two officers come down with whatever this is.  
I have not determined Victor's location other than to know he is not sick and Sam is missing.

In the next chapter, we see what Chris is doing.


	3. Witch's Fever

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - That's okay. You are forgiven for not noticing, especially with an excuse like that. Technically this isn't a disease, but for the majority of the story it will be refered to as that, since it's pretty much what everyone thinks it is. Phoebe and Coop's story still has a while for coming. There is a clue in this story in the chapter I am currently writing (which I think is chapter eighteen, I'm getting close to finishing up the writing of this episode). I've debated showing you Phoebe, but honestly showing you Phoebe would be . . . boring. Or not. I guess technically it wouldn't be boring. It's just that it would have little or nothing to do with the story line and it would be shorter than the Steve chapters . . . or else it would give away too much. I even thought about having Phoebe use Prue's astral projection power, but forgetting the fact that Phoebe has no idea Prue is back . . . Phoebe's not really in a position to use any powers right now. Phoebe and Coop's disappearance has nothing to do with the disease . . . but Sam's definitely does. Is that enough to draw you in?

The times with each chapter are approximate. Due to the time crunch involved in this story, I tried to map out what time it was in each scene. Sometimes there are scenes that are in a different time zone from San Francisco. These will have two times. The first will be the time in San Francisco. The second will be the time where ever they are. In this scene it is approximately 4 in the morning. And just so you have an idea Wyatt has been up for three days without any sleep (just lots of coffee) and Chris went to bed around 1:30 AM the day before only to be woken three hours later at 4:30 AM with the news that Piper was taking Leo to the hospital where Leo was diagnosed with the "disease". Chris has not been to sleep since.

* * *

Chapter Two – Witch's Fever

4AM

Chris Halliwell didn't know what made him the most anxious. It could be the fact that his dad was almost one day into a disease that started killing people as little as five days after they started showing symptoms. Or maybe there was the fact that his uncle, whom admittedly he didn't know all that well, but was still his uncle and treated like a big brother by his mother, was over halfway through the fifth day with a very bad case of it.

There was of course the most immediate option that he'd been up since four-thirty . . . yesterday . . . and he'd only had three hours of sleep the previous night. That was enough to put strain on someone not only in the middle of a family crisis, but what was quickly fixing up to be a global one. To make matters worse, there was nothing, absolutely nothing giving them an idea as to what was causing it.

All they had managed to deduce was that it was magical in origin, because there was no way every magical person they knew had the same immunity to it otherwise. That eliminated only a very small portion of causes. When it came to the world of magic there was an almost infinite amount of possible causes.

He opened the door into his dad's hospital room. The San Francisco area wasn't so badly infected that people were doubling up rooms yet, but it was only a matter of time unless someone figured out how to fix it. Inside he found his mom, Piper Halliwell, asleep in the arm chair next to his dad's bed. She looked exhausted, so he decided to let her sleep.

He looked down at his dad's bed. Leo Wyatt had always seemed like he could survive anything. After all, he'd died and was still alive eighty-five years later. Was this the end for him?

Chris couldn't accept that.

"Your dad?" a voice from the doorway asked.

Chris looked up at the nurse and nodded.

"I'm sorry," she offered. "We've got a lot of cases of the witch's fever."

"The what?" Chris looked at her confused.

"Witch's fever," she repeated. She shrugged. "It started somewhere around Salem and someone started calling it witch's fever. It stuck, so that's what they are calling it. It's not like anyone's got a better name for it."

_True, _he thought with a scowl, _but I don't like it. Witches don't need more bad rap._

"I've got to do some tests," the nurse informed him. "I hate to wake your mom, she looks so tired, so would you mind stepping out of the way?"

Chris sighed. "I'll be back later. Take care of him."

"We're doing our best," she assured him.

_Yeah,_ he thought as he headed out of the room, _but so far that hasn't been enough._ He headed down the hall and started looking for an empty room to orb out from.

"Looking for me?" a voice asked from a bed in the sixth room he checked.

Chris looked up surprised. "Emily."

Emily Colson gave him a sheepish grin from her hospital room. "I've got a fever. Apparently that can only mean one thing. No one else in my family is sick, which I guess is good. How's your uncle doing?"

"Not good," Chris admitted. "Aunt Prue's worried sick. With as sick as he is, it's likely he'll succumb to this soon."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she looked at him unhappily. "I know a lot of people have died, but so far I haven't known anyone who's died and I haven't known anyone who knew someone that died. I really don't want you to be the first."

"I kind of have to go," he told her. "I just stopped by to see my dad . . ."

"Your dad!" she exclaimed looking at him startled. "Oh, no! I'm so sorry, Chris."

He heaved in a sigh. "Thanks. Anyway, I was just here to see him. He's asleep, but they wanted to do some tests on him, so I figured I'd head on home. My cousins are at the manor trying to find something useful and I thought I'd offer to help."

"You look about ready to drop," Emily commented, looking him over.

"Boy, thanks."

She gave him a shrug and a smile. "Get some sleep, okay. You're no good to anyone if your brain's not functioning."

"I'll keep that in mind," he assured her.

"You do more than that," she ordered him. "Get some rest."

"We'll see."

She glared at him. After several seconds she sighed. "Fine." Thinking about what he said, she asked, "So you think this is magical?"

"It has to be," Chris insisted. "As far as we can tell no one magical has been affected."

"Maybe you just have really good immune systems," she suggested.

"Not likely," he argued. "Jani was forever suffering from hypothermia when she was little and Alanna was always running a fever."

"Forgive me for stating the obvious," she chuckled, not sounding at all sorry, "but doesn't Alanna shoot fire out of her hands? And doesn't Jani have ice in her veins . . . literally."

He shrugged. "That's true, but they weren't the only ones who got sick."

"Well, off with you then," she shooed him away. "Get some sleep."

Chris smiled. "We'll see." And then he orbed out.

Emily smiled as she snuggled into her bed. She was still hoping that she didn't have whatever this disease was, but if she did, she had confidence in Chris.

* * *

In the next chapter my favorite warlock is at a loss and to make things worse (for him) he has to deal with his very emotional daughter who has just gotten some bad news.


	4. Dev's Clueless Daddy

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Soraya - Not so much as you might think from my statement, but his absense is definitely connected. Yes, Steve still exists. You won't see him much in this one, since he has absolutely nothing to do with the problem, but he's more or less a main character for the moment, so I wanted to show how this affected him. Also, I have reasons for needing to develope Devia's character. At some point she has to make a choice as to which side she's on. As to Chris and Emily, while they have known each other for about two and a half months by now and she's known about magic for a little over a month, they still don't know each other all that well. She trusts him with her life, but she couldn't tell you what he does in his free time. He is still unsure if he made the right decision in letting her remember about magic. I will be dealing with that soon. By the end of the next episode Chris will be pretty firmly grounded in his opinion of whether or not he made the right decision. The only characters I have that are even remotely romantic are Toby and Aka, David and Rose, and then Kali with her soon to be new boyfriend. This is not including married couples or my two couples that were seperated due to demons. Oh, apparently I have some sort of clue about Phoebe and Coop in this chapter. I'd forgotten about this. It's nothing big, but it's something.

Stacey - Your "excuse" got a chuckle out of me. Sounds a bit like me, actually. Not the college part, but the procrastination part and the need to explain things. The more time I have to play with something the more complex it becomes. You should see this Charmed project I am working on with some friends. We don't know what "short story" means and we rarely meet a plot twist we don't like . . . we don't use them all, but we usually like them. *Big grin on the Supernatural reference* I'd forgotten about that episode, but I like it a lot. Have you read my Charmed/Supernatural crossover? It's called "The Halliwell Death Trap". It discounts everything after season seven of Charmed and ignores everything after season four of Supernatural (since at the time I had seen about two episodes from season five and season six wasn't even a certainty yet.) Since you're a fan, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one. Back to your review. For most of the rest of this story, it will be called "Witch's Fever" by most of the characters. There are various times it will be called other things. You will learn whether or not Emily has it at some point in this story. Glad to hear you love her. Yes, it is definitely hard on all of them. Some of them more than others. And if you think Chris is bad, you should see where Wyatt's at (sleep wise). Thank you for the compliments and here's that update. I'm not being all that productive this week Charmed wise. I managed to read some really good books and helped one of my pregnant Sims give birth to her twins, Tait and Pier. I've been neglecting my sims a lot. I've been neglecting all my games a lot. I also wrote some short and rather random pieces for one of my non Charmed, non fanfic stories.

It's kind of fun to show Steve when he doesn't know what's going on. And I like showing Devia.

* * *

Chapter Three – Dev's Clueless Daddy

4AM

Steve Kessler appeared in his bedroom in the blink of an eye. For once he had no idea what was going on. He generally made it his business to know what was going on in the underworld. This time he could learn very little. The younger demons and underworld dwellers didn't even seem to know anything and those older and presumably wiser, didn't see the point in dealing with someone who wasn't even close to hitting the half century mark.

All he knew for sure was that it was more deadly than anything he had ever tried. In fact in his schemes so far, no one had died except those he'd sent to go against the Halliwells. It was almost enough to bring a warlock to tears.

There was also the question of the missing Charmed One. While Steve desperately wished he'd had something to do with it, he was as clueless as everyone else seemed to be. If any demons knew what was going on there, they sure weren't showing it, and wouldn't they be bragging about bagging a Charmed One. It was rather a heady accomplishment. Only one demon had successfully done that before and not only was that demon long gone, but the formerly dead Charmed One was now alive and kicking.

He had learned that her husband was pretty much on his death bed and that her brother-in-law, the father of the two witches who'd been outwitting him for months now, was also sick. And that meant they would die. While he relished the thought that two Charmed Ones would lose their husbands, he'd prefer that he did it. It would be infinitely more pleasurable to know he had personally caused them pain.

He headed into the hall and heard the sound of crying. He followed the sound until he reached his daughter's room. Devia lay on her bed sobbing into her pillow. He pushed the door open and walked over to her bedside. She didn't seem to notice him, so he sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Her sobbing stopped long enough for it to register that her dad was there and then Devia just cried harder. She buried her head in her pillow and just shook.

Steve stared down at her, completely at a loss as to what to do. How could he help her if she wouldn't tell him what was wrong? And so for several minutes he just sat there.

It took almost twenty minutes of complete silence other than Devia's sobs before she lifted her head. She looked at her dad and sniffed. "Can you fix it, Daddy?"

Steve looked at her. He had no idea how to answer.

Apparently it didn't matter, for Devia made the next move. She flung herself at him and hugged his torso. "Daddy, I don't want them to die."

That did not sound at all promising. "They? Who do you mean, Dev?"

"Maya and Sandy," she sniffed out. "They caught the witch's fever."

"The what?" Steve looked at his daughter startled. "What are you talking about?"

"The witch's fever," she repeated as if he was an idiot. "You know, the disease that's been killing everybody around Salem, Massachusetts, the home of the witch trials. Don't you know anything, Daddy?"

Apparently, he had missed quite a bit while he was checking out the underworld. Witch's fever? What kind of name was that?

"You'll make it better, right, Daddy?" she pressed.

Steve sighed. Even if he had the slightest idea how to cure this "witch's fever", he wouldn't. If the price to pay was his daughter's temporary unhappiness, he'd have to pay it. He'd never wanted her to play with those nonmagical girls anyway.

"Daddy?"

Steve just sighed, again.

Devia looked up at him. "You'll help them, won't you?"

"I'm sorry, Dev," he whispered. "I don't know what is behind this and I have no idea how to cure anyone who has it."

"But . . . but . . ." She stared up at him, stammering. "There has to be!"

He shook his head. "No one seemed to think so."

With a wail she buried her head in his chest. "I don't want them to die, Daddy!"

* * *

There is a line in here that says of Leo and Andy "and that meant they would die". While finding previous examples of this isn't easy, every person who has ever been infected has died previous to now.

In the next chapter it's back to the manor which is where Chris is heading . . . after an "off-screen" detour. The chapter is called "The Changing of the Guard".

Random, more or less off topic. While I am not finished with this story, I started working on converting the beginning of the next episode into prose. That's right, the next episode was begun so long ago that I wrote the beginning in script. Of course I also have a story from season two that is partially done in script, so maybe that doesn't tell you much.


	5. The Changing of the Guard

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Stacey - Glad that you loved it so much. I had an absolutely blast writing that story. It was fun to just mess with things, to alter things established and it was fun seeing Dean and Sam (Sam mostly) react to the good witches known at the Halliwells. And yes, I absolutely will be finishing them eventually. Especially with the Supernatural one "Best Served Cold", I can see the majority of the story in my head. And of course with the way I started it, I have to let you know, eventually who the boy about to hang himself was arguing with even as he stepped off the chair and I have to let know if he servived when you already know one of the Winchester brothers (I think it was Sam) was bleeding on the floor. And in "Invisible" I have to explain why the Charmed Ones are being followed and what the title means. It just that I have so many other things that I am working on and sometimes other projects get a back seat. Seriously. I should be able to write those. There are only two of them . . . and then that's it . . . I think. And I should be able to write my Second Chances series (based off a rewrite of Centennial Charmed). There's only about eight of them. And I should be able to write my The Chris Chronicles. Other than the first episode or two it's just Chris' point of view of his time in the past. Imagine watching The Power of Three Blondes knowing that Chris thinks his aunts are hitting on him and hearing exactly what he thinks of that and then you have what inspired that series. That particular story is posted on another site. And I seriously should be able to write my Witch Hunts series. It's only about twenty-two episodes. And that's not even all the _Charmed_ projects I am working on. As to the actual review, yes, it is very fun to see him clueless. He doesn't like not being in control. He's also annoyed that this is working better than anything he's ever done, even if it can't actually kill Wyatt or Chris. It's also very fun writing Devia. You've got this young girl who's dad is evil and she doesn't even know it. She can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that Brianna should be dating Max, but she can't tell you her dad's evil. And Steve's biggest weakness is his daughter, possibly his only real weakness, which makes it all the more fun when he's dealing with her.

Soraya - And Steve with his daughter is always more fun than Steve trying to kill the Halliwells (be it Wyatt and Chris, Prue, or any other members of the family).

Hank went down to get his mom to check with the elders, but things didn't go quite how he expected.

* * *

Chapter Four – The Changing of the Guard

4:10AM

Hank stared at his mother stunned. "That's impossible! Isn't it?"

Paige Matthews-Mitchell shrugged. "Apparently not. I don't know what to tell you. I can't orb Up There."

"But how?" Hank looked at her confused. "Haven't you been Up There before?"

Paige nodded. "Of course I have. I don't know why I can't go up there right now. I only know that I can't."

"Then, something's up there," Hank decided. "There has to be. If there wasn't they wouldn't be keeping you out."

"We have no reason to believe this isn't something that just happens every once and a while."

"In the middle of a crisis?" Hank shook his head. "No. It's been over a week. Even if they . . . there's no way this is their doing."

"We'll figure out what's going on," Paige assured him. "Right now, I think it's time for you to go to bed. I think you've been up too long."

"I'm okay, Mom," he argued. "Really I am. We need to figure this out or all those people are going to die."

"The world does not depend on you, sleepyhead," she reminded him as she directed him up the stairs to her old bedroom. "And it certainly can't if you are too tired to think."

"But I'm not," he protested.

She shook her head. "Sleep. Let the rest of us who are a bit more rested take over." She pushed open the door to her old room and led him in. Once they were inside, she peeled back the covers and gently directed her son to sit down.

"I'm not tired," he protested, again, even as he yawned and lay down against the pillow.

Paige pulled off his shoes and socks before picking up his feet with obvious effort and tucking them under the covers. She smiled as Hank curled up in a ball, already half asleep. She pulled the covers to his chin and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Sleep well, my little one," she whispered.

She watched him for a few seconds as he quickly settled into sleep before she left the room and headed up the stairs.

In the attic she found her daughters rubbing sleep out of their eyes as Phoebe's three girls piled pillows and folded blankets into a far corner of the attic. Hope looked up as Paige entered the room. "Did you talk to them? What did they say?"

"So you're my son's partner in crime," Paige commented. "Off to bed with you, young lady."

"But I . . ."

"Bed," Paige directed, pointing toward the stairs.

Hope sighed and headed toward the stairs. She stopped and looked at Paige. "Hank looked at every page in the Book twice. It's not in there, but he mentioned blank pages in odd spots, so maybe that wasn't always the case."

Paige nodded. "You've said your piece. Now, off to bed." She looked at the other four girls."

"You still haven't heard anything from Mom and Dad, have you?" Ladybug Halliwell asked as she watched her little sister head down the stairs.

Paige shook her head. "Sorry, Sweetheart. I don't think they are going to just appear. After all this time, it just seems too easy."

Ladybug sighed. "I know. A girl can dream, can't she?"

Paige smiled. "Dreaming's allowed."

"Is Dad still okay?" Jani, the younger of Paige's twins asked as Chris orbed in by the podium holding the Book of Shadows.

Paige nodded. "He went to work. His department is amazingly intact, but most aren't, so he thought he could lend a hand there." She managed an amused smile as she added, "He also seemed to think we had enough people trying to figure out what magic is behind this without adding his complete lack of magical ability to the mixture."

"Uncle Andy's in a coma," Chris announced as he finished materializing. "I stopped in to visit before heading here. It was pretty much impossible to understand Aunt Prue, but Pat told me it's been almost two hours." He heaved in a deep breath and added, "And Vicki says she's seeing spots. I'm not sure what, if anything that means, but she seemed to think it was relevant. She said there are red spots mixing with white spots and then with more red spots to make purple spots. And she said she sees them only around patients sick with the . . . witch's fever." He mumbled the last part.

"The what?" Paige looked at him confused.

"That's what the world has apparently named this," he admitted.

"Poor Uncle Andy," Jani bemoaned.

"Poor Aunt Prue," Cilly Halliwell corrected. "Uncle Andy's going to die. Aunt Prue's the one that's going to have to live without him, again."

"There's still time," Ladybug argued. "We could still find a way to fix this all."

Paige looked down at her watch. "He has until about two this afternoon before his temperature spikes and his organs . . ."

"How about we don't remind the guy whose dad has the same disease, no matter how early a stage," Chris interrupted to suggest.

Paige sighed. "Sorry, I just got carried away. It's been a long week and I'm not usually up at four-thirteen in the morning."

"So we have nothing?" Alanna, Paige's older twin asked as she picked up the Book of Shadows and walked over to the couch.

"If there was something on those blank pages, then someone put it there, right?" Ladybug spoke up. "Maybe we could try summoning them." She looked pleadingly at Chris. "You said it was possible. Couldn't we try summoning Grams? Maybe she knows. I'd love to meet her."

Chris frowned. "Maybe."

Cilly shook her head. "That would do no good. Didn't you hear Hope and Hank talking? Uncle Leo doesn't know anything. Like or not, they're contemporaries." She pointed a finger at Alanna. "Not a word about my dad's age."

Alanna shrugged. "He'd be kind of handy right now."

"Yeah, well, Hope suggested I try talking to some of the cupids, so that's what I'm going to do. I'll leave this up to you guys, but pick someone older than Grams." That said she vanished in pink hearts.

Alanna began flipping through the Book for a summoning spell.

"How come we've never summoned anyone before?" Jani asked her mom. "It would be very amazing to have met Grandma Patty or Grams. Or your parents, Mom," she added thinking about her mom's adopted parents who had died long before she'd been born. "We've only met one grandparent, which doesn't seem fair if it's possible to summon the five we've never met."

"Considering all six of your grandparents are dead," Paige returned, "consider yourself lucky that you know even one. If it weren't for magic . . ."

"There'd be no us," the twins interrupted in unison.

"Mom, we know," Alanna assured her.

"We've thought about it," Jani added, "quite a bit. Since Grandpa lived in the nineteenth century and you were born late in the twentieth, it's rather obvious . . ."

". . . That without magic," Alanna interrupted, again, "there'd be no us."

Paige looked at her daughters amused. They did not normally finish, or interrupt as the case might be, each other's sentences. Clearly Jani was right that they had thought about this a lot. "All right, we'll try summoning someone." She looked at the three teenage girls and Chris. "Any suggestions?"

* * *

After the dinner at the Silberman's house in the last episode I bet some of you want to know what's going to happen regarding Danielle's offer to move them all to New York. One of the members of Seth's family is sick (since being magical Seth can't get it, I can't really hint that it might be him) and Seth has fallen asleep in the hospital room (what can you expect, it's four in the morning).


	6. The Meaning of Love

First a thank you to my reviewers:

weiliya - That is certainly is, but I'm glad despite the sad that you are liking it.

Soraya - I have fun with those two together. They are becoming more confident with magic and it's fun to see that. As to who will be summon, I imagine you will be surprised. You'll find out in the chapter after this one, so not too much longer for that. As to who is sick, well, here you go.

Stacey - Thanks. I hope that I get to working on them some more soon, but we'll see. I did try outlining more of Invisible, so I have a pretty good idea of what will happen for several chapters and Best Served Cold is completely outlined . . . if only I could find the outline. Paige's kids have gone through phases and for the twins at least, one of those phases, was magic-isn't-around-so-I-don't-care-about-magic. They've gotten over it. ;) As to who is sick . . . I guess just read on. It was what worked best for the story, especially the story with Seth's family.

It's been a long week. I'm trying to get everything updated in various places, so enjoy this new chapter.

Derek has made a decision about Danielle. Curious to find out what he decided?

* * *

Chapter Five – The Meaning of Love

4:20AM

Seth Silberman blinked open his eyes and looked across the room at where his dad sat staring at his little brother in the hospital bed. When Peter had come down with the diseases sweeping the continent two days before, Seth had been in a state of disbelief. Surely Peter would be fine. His little brother was hardly ever sick. Now that two days had passed, Seth had to admit, not only was his little brother not getting better, but no one was. So far everyone who had shown signs of being sick a week before was dead and every hour that passed more people got sick.

"Anything happen while I was asleep?" Seth asked with a yawn.

Derek shook his head. "He's been sleeping restlessly."

"And Danielle?"

Derek sighed. "She's in Taiwan. So far there haven't been any cases over there and she doesn't want to be anywhere near it for as long as possible."

"Why are you still with her, Dad?" Seth asked as he looked down at his little brother. "She's not exactly a people person."

"She's still Peter's mom," Derek argued.

"Which, considering how she treats Peter, is one of the worst reasons I have ever heard," Seth returned.

Derek sighed. "We can discuss it after the baby's born."

"We can discuss it now," Seth argued. "She's invited us to move to New York with her. When that baby is born, she's moving. Now's the time to decide if we are going with her."

"Now, while your brother is sick?" Derek frowned at his son.

Seth nodded. "Now, while Peter is sick and Danielle is nowhere around. But then, she's never been all that interested in him before. Why would she start now?"

"Seth!"

"Do you think going to New York with her would make her more attentive as a mother?"

Derek sighed.

Seth stood and walked around the hospital bed to where his dad was sitting. "Do you even want to go to New York?"

Derek didn't answer.

"Dad?"

"I told Danielle we weren't moving," Derek informed him in a soft voice.

Seth blinked, surprise written on his face. "You did?"

Derek nodded. "I've been kidding myself if I think this is going to make a difference. That woman doesn't have a mothering bone in her body. I think now that Peter is getting older, she does want to get to know him, but I don't think she really wants to be his mother."

"What's going to happen to the new baby?" Seth asked, wondering how this decision would affect her plan for the baby.

"That remains the same," Derek assured him. "Assuming there is still a population in New York when the baby is born, I will be joining her there for a few weeks."

"But I thought . . ."

Derek shook his head. "I need you to watch Peter while I am gone."

"I don't understand," Seth looked at him confused. "Didn't you just say . . ?"

"That we are not moving to New York," Derek confirmed.

"Doesn't that mean that you are also breaking up with her?" Seth asked, hoping for clarification.

"When I told her that we weren't going to move with her, she was annoyed," Derek admitted. "I'm sure she thinks this is just temporary, but I mean to stand by it."

"Then, why are you going to New York, even for a few weeks?" Seth needed to know.

"She's still having my child," Derek reminded him. "That baby needs to know, right from the start that he or she is wanted. I wasn't able to be there when Peter was born. I intended to be there this time and she intends to go to New York as soon as this crisis is over . . . if it ever ends. That's why I'm going to New York. Can you watch Peter while I'm gone?" The idea that his son wouldn't make it was not to be considered.

"Of course," Seth didn't hesitate to agree. "If you really mean to stay apart from Danielle, be careful. You never know what she might do."

"I know what she won't do," Derek admitted. "For all that she wants to keep me, she has still refused every time I have proposed. If I get so deeply involved in a relationship, I don't want it to be with someone who refused to marry me."

Seth sighed. "Relationship sure seem like a lot of hard work."

Derek nodded. "They are, but when they work out they're worth it."

"How would you know?" Seth retorted. "You've been with my mother, who only wanted you as a sperm donor, and Danielle, who . . . well, yeah."

Derek chuckled. "There was Abby Denison in fifth grade. That was . . ."

"Okay, I do not need to know about your elementary school . . ."

"We broke up when we were juniors in high school," Derek corrected. "It wasn't a bad break. It just became apparent that we'd become a habit. And I dated a couple of girls in college that were decent if short relationships."

"Dad," Seth protested.

Derek managed a brief smile. "Look at my parents. They have a good relationship."

Seth smiled back. "That's true."

"And your friend, Wyatt," Derek added. "His parents have a good relationship. And my relationship with your mother gave me you. It was worth it."

Seth's smile grew. "Thanks. It's not everyone who can say that about someone who . . ."

"Who what?" Derek asked. "She never physically hurt me. She was a demon, yes, but she was not trying to hurt me. It was a result, because she took you, but I don't think it was the goal."

"You never talk much about her," Seth commented.

His father nodded. "Perhaps later, once your brother is well and the new baby is born. Perhaps then we can talk."

Seth nodded back. "I'd like that."

"Do you think you can get us something to eat?" Derek requested, abruptly changing the subject.

Seth straightened up. "Sure, I'll do that." He headed out of the room and into the hall. He stopped at the nurse's station.

The nurse on duty was talking to someone on the phone. While she filled out some papers and looked through cupboards for something a volunteer asked for she said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't tell you information about a specific patient unless you're family," the nurse told the person on the phone. "I know we're in an epidemic, but that doesn't change the policy. There are," she glanced down across the room at TV newscast with the latest statistics glaring across the bottom of the screen, "nineteen million people with confirmed cases of the witch's fever and another fifty-six million with suspected cases. We have over one hundred thousand cases in this city and it's just growing. Unless the patient you are trying to find out about is in stage five, I don't even have time to look them up. I'm sorry." She pulled a water bottle out of a small fridge and unscrewed the lid as she hung up.

Seth started to say something, but she only took a sip and put it back in the fridge. She grabbed something off the counter and ran off down the hall.

He sighed and walked away. Maybe if he wandered around long enough he'd find a vending machine or something like that.

"Seth, is that you?"

Seth turned around and grinned at the sight of his best friend. "Wyatt, you look like a zombie. When was the last time you slept?"

Wyatt yawned. "There's no time for sleep. The hospital staff is getting sick faster than anyone else. There's not enough people left to help the sick. They need me here."

"You're no good to anyone dead," Seth informed him.

"How can I sleep?" Wyatt demanded. "How can I abandon the people here?"

"You wouldn't be abandoning them," Seth argued. "You would be getting back up to health. You aren't even a doctor, Wy. You are a volunteer."

"We have six doctors on staff who are not themselves in hospital beds," Wyatt informed him. "One of them is an orthopedic surgeon. Another is a gynecologists. Ava's a surgeon. We actually have one doctor who isn't sick, but he broke his leg, so he's kind having a hard time getting around, but he is. With him, that makes seven. They are dealing with this the best they can, but none of them are used to this. It's not much better with the nurses. They need all the volunteers they can get."

"Well, be careful," Seth directed him. "Eventually, you will be too tired to function and I fear that time is coming soon."

Wyatt exhaled slowly. "I'll be careful. You be, too."

"I will," Seth assured him. "I'm looking for a vending machine. Dad's holding vigil in Peter's hospital room and he's hungry."

"Follow me," Wyatt directed. "I could use something to eat myself."

"I tried to see if I could learn anything in the under . . . um, well, you know where," Seth commented as he followed Wyatt down the hall.

Wyatt cast a glance over his shoulder. With a yawn, he asked, "Find anything?"

"Not a whole lot," Seth admitted. "It's happened before, at least they think so, but nothing on this scale."

"So there's a cure?" Wyatt looked interested.

"Or the isolated it faster than we did here," Seth countered sadly. "Whatever it was, when it happened, it barely registered with them." He moaned. "I'm going to go back there after I give Dad something to eat. Maybe I'll find something else." He shook his head sadly. "What if they die? What if my brother and your dad and everyone else die?"

"Don't talk like that," Wyatt ordered him. "Don't ever talk like that. There's got to be something."

"Nineteen million confirmed cases," Seth mumbled.

"Nineteen!" Wyatt looked at him startled. "Last I heard it was four million."

"When was that?"

"A couple of hours ago, I guess," Wyatt admitted. Though to be honest it could have been much more. He couldn't even remember what day it was any more. He figured he'd probably been up for almost three days straight, but it could be two or four. "What day is it?"

Seth gave him a strange look. "Thursday the sixth."

Three days then. At least he had kept that . . . "The sixth?"

Seth nodded.

"May sixth?" Wyatt groaned.

Seth nodded, again.

"I've got to go," Wyatt informed Seth before he ran off down the hall without any explanation.

Seth sighed and glanced down the hall. All that and there still was no vending machine.

* * *

Any idea what May sixth is? Imaginary cookie for any one who guesses right.

Want to find out who Paige and the girls are summoning . . . so do they. Find out in the next chapter "1897" when they get a bit of a surprise as to whom they summon and they learn some new information about what's going on.


	7. 1897

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Stacey - I hated doing that to him, but it had to be Peter. It couldn't be Danielle (I'd probably kill her if it was . . . but she's not allowed to die at present. I still have need of her.) And it couldn't be Derek (mostly because I needed this conversation). And Seth is immune, so I couldn't get him sick. I don't think Danielle has ever been accused of being a good mom. And I don't think she ever will be accused of that. Derek definitely intends to get full custody of the baby when the baby is born and he intends to legally cut Danielle's parental rights, because you're right, with Derek that baby (man I want to use a gender and a name, but . . . soon. Not this episode, but soon. June . . . I think.) will be loved and with Danielle, not even close. Wyatt is worse in the lack of sleep department as you will see in this next chapter.

Soraya - I think it will help Derek's relationship with both of his sons to be rid of Danielle. Peter's survival, well, as you'll see from this next chapter, that's trickier than they certainly hope. As to the 6th, it's a date straight from Charmed, but I'm pretty sure it only made an appearance once in . . . "Exit Strategy"? . . . not sure on the episode. You will find out later what it is.

A ghost is to be summoned, but it's not someone they expected to see, not at all. And the news is not good. All the same enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Six – 1897

4:30AM

Jani put down the last crystal on the floor. "We're really going to see a ghost in here, Mom?"

Paige nodded. "Who wants to say the spell?"

"Not Chris," Alanna announced with a laughing glance at her cousin sound asleep on the couch.

Paige chuckled as the sight of him. One arm hung off the couch. The other was flung loosely over his eyes. One leg had fallen off the couch and he looked most uncomfortable, but he was definitely sound asleep.

"We don't have to write a spell, right?" Ladybug asked, remembering a conversation with Hope recently where Hope had corrected a spell she had written. Having her little sister correct a spell she'd written was never high on her list of good moments. It would have been bad enough if it had been Cilly. No, actually that would have been worse. Cilly didn't bother with witch stuff often. She left that for Ladybug and Hope.

Paige shook her head. "No, this spell is already written." She took the Book off the podium and brought it over to Ladybug. "See, no spell writing needed."

Ladybug grinned. "In that case, may I?"

Paige looked at the other girls. "Any objections?"

Alanna shook her head. "Who are we summoning?" she asked, looking down at the crystals on the floor.

"Hopefully someone who can help us," Paige retorted. "Ladybug?"

Reading aloud from the book, Ladybug chanted, "Hear these words. Hear my cry. Spirit from the other side, come to me. I summon thee. Cross now the great divide."

Little orbs of light swirled around in the midst of the crystals. Within them a form began to take shape and when they dissipated everyone stared stunned at the man in their center. He was perhaps around seventy years of age, though it was difficult to tell. Whatever color his hair had once been was replaced by white. He had a receding hairline, but there was definitely still a decent amount of hair on his head.

He looked around the attic, his eyes taking in each person in turn. Finally, his eyes turned back to Paige. "You summoned me?"

"Well, um," Paige looked at him confused. "We weren't exactly expecting you. Who are you?"

"James," he informed her. "My name is James Bowen. I believe this is the attic of my daughter's home, but it looks very strange."

"Your daughter's home?" Paige asked surprised.

"Yes, her husband had it built for them to live in," he told her. "That was in . . . 1913 I think. But . . . we are nowhere near 1913 are we?"

Paige shook her head. "2027 actually. I'm Paige. My sister lives here now with her husband."

"Of course it is," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I don't pay much attention to what's going on down here, not since I died. Iris does. She wanted to follow the lives of our children. I found it rather depressing. And no one ever summoned me. So why did you?"

"Bowen," Paige mumbled to herself. "I don't think I know that name. Girls?"

Alanna nodded. "Aunt Prue's past life was named Phoebe Bowen."

"Gregory's daughter," James declared. "Gregory was my only son. We had two daughters and Gregory at the end. For a while there were those who thought we might have the Charmed Ones."

Paige chuckled at that. "You were a few generations too early for that, I'm afraid."

James looked at her startled. He looked around the room at the three girls. "Them?"

"Nope," She shook her head with a grin. "My sisters aren't here right now, but those two girls are mine," she pointed at her daughters. "Their brother is asleep downstairs. And that girl belongs to my sister, Phoebe," she pointed to Ladybug. "And sleeping beauty on the couch is my sister, Piper's, youngest."

James followed her pointing finger around the room. "The Charmed Ones? You and your sisters?"

She nodded. "That's us. I'm surprised you didn't here. Grams is rather proud of the fact that her granddaughters are charmed and I guessed she'd be your great-granddaughter?"

Alanna nodded. "Yeah, 'cause Phoebe Bowen was from the same generation as Grams' mom."

"Enough of that, I supposed," James declared. "You must have had a reason for summoning me."

Paige nodded. "People have been dying, thousands of people. We don't know what's causing it, but it doesn't seem to affect those who are magical. Does that ring any bells?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid it doesn't. Do you know anything more?"

"Not much," she admitted with a sad sigh. "It originated in Duxbury, Massa . . ."

"Duxbury?" he interrupted.

"You know the name?" Paige asked surprised.

"Of course," he agreed. "I grew up not far from there on the outskirts of Boston. In 1897, that's the year you want to know about," he informed them. "It was the year my younger daughter gave birth to her daughter, Philippa."

"I think that's Grams' mom," Alanna whispered to her sister.

"How can you be sure?" Jani whispered back. "I've seen the family tree. There's no first name listed for her, just an initial."

"The year," was Alanna confident reply. She looked up to see James had stopped talking and was looking at her.

"Philippa married a man by the name of Gordon Johnson," James informed them, "if that helps you figure that out. They had two children, Penny and Donny. Donny was just a baby when I died."

"That's her all right," Alanna confirmed. "Penny's our Grams. Or rather she's Mom's Grams. Everyone just calls her Grams. We haven't actually met her though; on account of she died almost thirty years ago."

"Much as I wish we had time to hear you chat about that, Alanna," Paige commented, not looking like she really did wish they had time for that, "we don't. Every minute we spend likely looses another life or more than one."

Alanna grimaced.

James sighed. "Duxbury. In 1897 we didn't live far from there, but we were planning to move to San Francisco. It was about a week before we planned to move when the reports started coming in from Duxbury. There was a mysterious illness that was infecting the populous. No one was much worried at first, but Gregory said he recognized it."

"Gregory did?" Jani asked, wondering how his son would recognize something he didn't.

James nodded. "Since the very beginning of our line the men have rarely had powers despite the fact that one the first known witches in our line was a man. When it has happened it's usually because of someone in the family married into some other magical line. Gregory's power of weather manipulation came from Iris' side of the family as did his daughter, Phoebe's, power of cryokinesis. Gregory was always conscious of how unusual his having powers was. I have none myself, so he tended to be the most focused of my three. He memorized the Book of Shadows."

Ladybug gaped at him. "He memorized it!"

Alanna and Jani looked at each other. "Sounds like our brother," Alanna retorted.

James just smiled. "Yes, he memorized it and in it, he found an entry from 1767. I don't remember the particulars, but Gregory would. I do remember that it described the events happening then in Duxbury as having happened before in Duxbury. There was a spell that pushed it back, but could not end it."

"Pushed it back?" Paige asked, confused.

He nodded. "The woman who wrote the entry said a witch she knew had cast the spell. She had done so knowing that it was going to kill her husband who had been infected."

"The spell killed him?" Ladybug frowned. "Wasn't it supposed to save people, not kill them."

He shook his head. "It was supposed to protect those not infected. We don't know how to cure it. We only know how stop it from infecting anyone else for 130 years. Once the spell is cast, everyone infected dies, instantly, even if they aren't showing symptoms."

Paige sucked in a breath.

"Uncle Leo," Jani gulped. "We cast this spell, he goes from having four days to live to having none."

"We couldn't find any records from 1637 or 1507 or any time earlier, so we don't know exactly when this started, but the entry stated flat out that it didn't start in 1767."

"Do you know the spell?" Ladybug asked, knowing that was the question no one wanted to ask.

He shook his head. "We didn't cast it. There was another family that knew what was going, the family of the witch. They cast it. Once that happened I didn't look too closely. I doubt even Gregory could tell you the spell at this point."

"You said he memorized the Book of Shadows," Alanna protested. "Surely that included that spell."

"Isn't it still in the Book?"

Alanna shook her head. "Our brother looked through it twice. There's no mention of this anywhere. Somehow, sometime, someone removed it."

"Then, I don't know what you can do," he admitted. "By the time he died, Gregory no longer remembered much of what was in the Book of Shadows. He'd likely remember more details than I do, but the spell? No, I don't think so."

"This is bad," Jani admitted. "I was really hoping you'd have the answer."

"I really wish I did," James assured her before white lights swirled around him and he disappeared leaving behind only the crystals they had used to summon him.

* * *

Clearly there was info in the Book about this. What do you think happened to that info?

And if anyone was wondering, I didn't make James or Gregory up. We know nothing about them other than parents, spouce, siblings, kids, but they are officially from Charmed. I got their names off the mixed up, messed up family tree in "Pardon My Past."

In the next chapter someone else is having a much worse day than the Halliwells. New York City is pretty much a city of the dead, with most of it's inhabitance either dead or at least sick. And the bad day is just getting worse for one family there. The chapter is called "What the Elders Don't Know". Care to finish that sentence or give a list of things that would go under that title? I'm curious to see what people might come up with.


	8. What the Elders Don't Know

First a thank you to my reviewers:

Soraya - Thank you. It was an interesting chapter to write. It was hard to decide who they would summon and I finally named Grams' mom in order to write it. There was useful information in there, if they could only figure out how to use it.

Stacey - I know, it's it cute. He basically got to the manor, delivered the information he needed to and lay down on the couch. The second he lay down, he pretty much fell asleep. He's exhausted. It was interesting trying to decide what parts of the family tree to use. I have a major backstory going on in this family, which comes out a little in this story. Last I mentioned it, you had not read the comics, but if you have since then or ever get the chance to, there is some new information about their family tree in the comics and since this was all decided before the comics, this is very different from what you will find in the comics. As to James, it is a pity he didn't know more, but since someone else dealt with it back in 1897, he never looked very much into it. He knew he'd be dead the next time it showed up and he didn't count on the Book of Shadows info disappearing. And you're right, Chris won't be happy about any of this when he wakes up.

You haven't seen Josias since Wyatt and Chris figured out how to deal with the anti-orbing gel in "Anti-Orb Zone". For him, things have changed since Elizabeth got her wings back as you will see in this chapter. Since most of his charges are in New York City, he's had to be around a lot of very drepressed people as all around them people are dying. Right now, he's with his youngest charge, Pansy, who you met in "Anti-Orb Zone". Pansy has been dealing with a lot.

* * *

Chapter Seven – What the Elders Don't Know

4:45AM (7:45AM in NY)

Josias Hinshaw watched as his youngest charge waved her hands at a broken park bench. Pansy Haskell giggled as she watched the bench repair itself.

"You'd better be careful, Pan," Josias warned her. "Using magic outside is risky."

"I know," Pansy assured him. "No one is around though. Everyone is so sick," she added sadly.

New York was indeed a quiet place since the illness had swept through it. Just about everything was closed down. With only weeks left till school ended every school in New York was closed. The majority of the students and the majority of the teachers were hospitalized with at most two days to live unless something changed. At quarter 'til eight in the morning no self respecting girl of five-years-and-ten-months was even thinking about school.

Pansy wasn't either. She was thinking about the fact that three-fourths of her kindergarten class was either sick or dead. Someone so young shouldn't have to be worrying about things like death and illness.

Josias was not, by any stretch of _any_one's imagination, an optimist, but seeing Pansy sad made him want to be one so he could see his way into cheering her up. When he'd "signed up" to be a whitelighter, babysitting a child witch had not been what he'd had in mind, but now that Elizabeth had her orbing ability back most of their combined charges were now just hers and Josias found himself babysitting Pansy a lot. Pansy's mom, Portia, seemed to be the only charge left who needed him at all.

"Carrie's funeral is later," Pansy whispered, referring to a friend from school who had died on the fourth, two days before. "Can you take me?"

"Don't you want your mom to take you?" he asked. Like any normal person, he didn't like funerals. He'd been to far too many in his time.

"I don't think she'll be off in time," Pansy informed him. "Mom's not sick. Not sick means if your job's not closed, you work."

_Isn't that the truth?_ "Would you like to go somewhere else?" he suggested as he watched a woman on a phone drop the phone and break down in sobs.

"No," Pansy decided, not seeing the woman. "I like it here. It's quiet."

He sighed. _Too quiet._

"If you want to go somewhere else, just call Elizabeth," she suggested. "She likes me."

_Oh, great, now she thinks this is about my opinion of her_, he thought as he used his body as a barrier to keep her from seeing the sobbing woman. He didn't think he wanted any questions about that.

"Where is she anyway?" Pansy asked, adding, "I haven't seen her in a while."

Come to think of it, neither had he. Normally, he would have seen her at staff meetings if nothing else, but because of what was going on with Cassia, Kevin had canceled them for the time being. He'd always like Kevin's staff meetings. They had much more life than some of the others he had been to.

"I wish I knew more spells," Pansy mumbled in a soft frustrated voice.

"What?" Josias looked at her surprised. "More spells? What for? You've got years before you need to worry about spells."

"I want to stop the dying," Pansy pouted. "It's bad magic, isn't it?"

"Bad magic," he repeated, thinking about those words. Without warning he heaved her up into his arms. "Okay, kiddo, we are going to drop you off at your grandma's house for a little while."

"But Gammy's busy," Pansy protested.

"She's not at work," Josias informed her as he walked over to a clump of trees. "That's the main thing. I need to go talk to my boss and it's forbidden to take living beings Up There."

She wrinkled her nose and sighed. "Fine. But Gammy's not going to be happy."

"She adores you," he argued. "She won't care all that much. And I'll be back as soon as I can talk to my boss." _You guys seem to forget that my job isn't actually watching Pansy all day every day._ He glanced around to double check that no one was watching him and then he orbed out.

They reappeared in an upscale New York City apartment. Josias put Pansy down. "Let's go tell your grandma that you're here."

"I'll tell her," Pansy decided running down the hall. "Gammy! I'm here!"

Josias groaned and hurried after her. "Pansy, wait! You can't just . . ."

"Phil's not here," Jason Hudson, Pansy's grandfather informed them as he scooped his granddaughter up into his arms. "Is everything all right?"

"Other than the obvious?" Josias asked as he slowed to a stop.

"That should go without saying," Jason commented. "Why were you watching Pansy?"

"Portia was busy," Josias shrugged.

"I see," Jason looked at him confused. "Well, I can watch her. Don't worry about that."

"You haven't gotten any symptoms have you?"

Jason shook his head. "No, I don't know why, but Phil doesn't think I'm immune, just lucky."

"Gampy, I'm scared," Pansy announced as she snuggled up next to him.

"Pansy, honey, go get some water from the fridge," Jason directed her. "I need to talk to your friend."

Pansy ran down the hall leaving the two men alone.

Josias looked at Jason expectantly. "What do you need?"

"Scott's stage five," Jason informed him deadpan. "That's why Phil's not here. She went with Lissi to be at his bedside when he dies. It's only been six months since they lost their mom. How are they supposed to deal with losing their dad, too?"

Josias didn't have an answer for that. He stayed silent, sure that Jason had more to say.

"And we can't reach Rayne, so Lissi and Phelicia have that on their minds, too," Jason sighed. "This whole family's falling apart. Do you know anything? Anything?"

"I'm going to go talk to my boss," Josias told him. "I'm hoping he can talk to the others and between them they'll know something that can put a stop to this."

Pansy ran down the hall toward them with three bottled waters. "Got them, Gampy! I even got one for Josias."

Josias waved her hand away as she held it up to him. "Sorry, Pan. I have to get going. The sooner I talk to my boss, the sooner I can find out what he knows."

Jason took the bottle of water Pansy offered him. "Pansy, I was just about to head out. Your Gammy . . . well, she's visiting her dad and she . . ."

Pansy's eyes widened. "Oh, no. He's . . ." She wrapped her arms around his legs and sobbed.

Jason picked her up and held her in his arms. He looked over her head as he hugged her tight. "Good luck."

Josias nodded and orbed out . . . and right back in. He frowned. He orbed out, again, with the same results. His frown grew and he saw a matching one growing on Jason's face. He forced a quick grin and orbed out.

This time it worked, but that didn't help much, since the destination had changed. He found himself across the country in Kevin's apartment. It amused him that Kevin even had one, but Kevin was the only living elder and when he could, he actually had a life. He took his job as an elder fairly seriously . . . most of the time, but he also wasn't serious just for the sake of being serious as he suspected some of the elders where. He earned respect from those under him and that just made people respect him all the more.

Josias tapped his hand against the wall. "Kevin." He knew he should have his cell on him, but the things had never sat well with him, so he hadn't even bothered to report it when he'd lost it. Now, he was beginning to wish he had. Hopefully they would have found it by now. Thankfully, there was a magical switchboard at Kevin's place that could be used by any of the whitelighters Kevin had issued one to in order to reach any of the phones. When this was over, he was going to see if Kevin would use it to try and find the missing phone.

"What did I tell you about calling me today?" Kevin's voice boomed through the intercom wired throughout the apartment. The fact that "today" for Kevin had been going on for almost two weeks didn't need bringing up. It was rather irrelevant anyway.

"Only call if it's an emergency," Josias repeated the order each of them had received when Cassia had been brought Up There to go before the elders.

"And?" Kevin pressed.

"And there are an estimate seventy million people who are in varying degrees of dying on four continents with a death count somewhere near eleven thousand," Josias informed him. "Over five thousand of those died in the last hour alone. I'd say that constitutes an emergency."

There was silence on the other end as Kevin absorbed Josias's words. "Eleven thousand people are dead? From what?"

"We don't know," Josias admitted. "They're calling it the witch's fever, because it originated about fifty miles from Salem, Massachusetts in a town called Duxbury."

"What can we do, though?" Kevin asked in protest. "It's a disease. There's nothing magical about that."

"How about the fact that so far as anyone magical can tell, not one magical person has gotten sick?"

There was silence on Kevin's end, again. "None?"

"Kari's fine, Kevin," Josias retorted.

"I wasn't asking that," Kevin was quick to protest.

"Then, let me get that over, your family is fine with the exception of your brother-in-law, who as far as I know does not have the witch's fever," Josias informed him. "As best I can tell, he has pneumonia and they can cure that."

"I didn't ask," Kevin protested, again.

"I know," Josias agreed, "but if I was you, I'd think it and I don't need you focused on them. I need your focus on finding out if there is anything the other elders know about this."

"Perhaps you should come up here and ask them yourself," Kevin suggested.

"I tried," Josias informed him, resigned. "It didn't work. I can orb, but I can't orb Up There."

There was another bout of silence and Josias wished he could see Kevin. The guy made a magical phone system. Why couldn't he have used phones with video conferencing?

"I can't orb to you," Kevin informed him, sounding a little spooked. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"It takes about five days to kill a person," Josias informed him. "That's about five hours for you, which means in five of your hours, the death count will be around seventy million. They go into comas about twelve hours before they die. I've just been informed that Scott Nielson, the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather of pretty much all the charges I have left, is in those twelve hours. I lost a charge, two days ago." He ran his hand through his hair. "Look I don't know. Everybody's pretty much freaked out. It's mostly contained in North America and northern South America, but yesterday is hit Europe and Africa. Nothing yet in Asia or Australia, but at the rate this is going, it's only a matter of time. We don't know how it's spreading. There are people who are completely isolated that come down with it and people who work in hospitals, not many mind you, who are untouched." He sighed and sank down on to Kevin's couch.

"Okay, place of origin is Duxbury, Massachusetts," Kevin repeated, trying to organize the information in his head. "No known magical victims. Five days before death. And you have no idea how it's been spread."

"That's pretty much it," Josias admitted. "Eight days and we know nothing."

"Eight days, huh?" Kevin sighed. "Can your charges look into this at all?"

"Scott's dying," Josias shook his head, despite the fact that Kevin couldn't see him. "There's no way they are going to be able to focus. Lissi and Phil were a mess when Paula died in November. Phelicia and Portia don't really know enough magic to be of much use. And forget asking Pansy. She's five. She can fix a lot of things, but she can't fix this."

"All right," Kevin sighed. "Half my whitelighters are up here, more than half actually." He paused and then amended, "Actually, I think only you, JD, and Tessie are down there. I need you to do something for me while I look into this. Make sure you have your phone on you."

"Um . . ." Josias began.

"It's in the drawer in the end table next to the couch in my living room," Kevin informed him. "Make sure you take the right one. There are six of them right now. JD, Cassia, and Mikelle seem to be the only ones who manage to keep track of them. We'll discuss that later, when all this is over."

Josias pulled open the drawer in the end table and blinked. Sure enough, there were six cell phones there.

"Get it after I hang up," Kevin instructed him. "I have some things for you to do and the sooner I get off the sooner I can start looking into this. Now, sit down."

Josias sat down. Some days he wondered why he listened to a kid who had never shaved. This was not going to be one of those days.

* * *

Since I'm not trying to confuse anyone with all the names in this chapter, these are descendents (ironically of Gregory Bowen mentioned in the previous chapter, but more specifically) of P. Bowen (known in this series as Phoebe Bowen). Scott Nielson's late wife Paula was Phoebe Bowen's granddaughter. They had two daughters: Lissi (short for Phyllis) and Phil (short for Philomena). Lissi and her husband, Rayne Darnell have one daughter, Phelicia who is around thirty. Phil and her husband, Jason Hudson, have one daughter, Portia, who is the widowed mother of Pansy.

I based the passage of time up there off of the passage of time mentioned in "The Honeymoon's Over". Piper said it had been only a day, while her sisters said it had been a month. Since a month is between twenty-eight and thirty-one days and a day is twenty-four hours, I decided Piper and Leo could have spent a little over a day Up There, and it could have been a little less than a month for Prue and Phoebe, so an hour Up There equaling a day down here, seems to work. Clearly . . . magic school is _not_ Up There.

So the next chapter: Wyatt has been on his feet for three days. Do I really have to say more?

PS - Random side note. The title of this chapter came from the phrase "What you don't know won't hurt you."


	9. Good Night, Sweetheart, Good Night

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - Well, the people under him pretty much do, even if some of them don't know what to do with some of his ideas, like the idea of having a magical cell phone. The Bowens are aware of the Halliwells and of the Charmed Ones. The living generations of the Halliwells, on the other hand are not very aware of the Bowens. I have a couple stories coming up that will go into that, but not for a while. The second of the two shows that Patty and Paula (Paula being the recently deseased wife of Scott Neilson, the man Josias is worried about who is in stage five) where friends as teenagers. That story is called "Witchstock Revisited". I won't go into it too much here, but it answers a question I would have prefered was answered: "Why was Patty at her Aunt Janice's rather than with her parents?" And it is a long answer. The first of the two episodes is called "Warren Witches" and it will go into the answer to your question.

Sorry about the massive time delay in posting this chapter. I'll try to be more prompt with the next one.

It's back to Wyatt at the hospital and he's not going to like this conversation.

* * *

Chapter Eight – Good-Night, Sweetheart, Good-Night

5:30AM

Wyatt's eyes drooped down as he walked into the break room. The coffee and the adrenaline were both starting to wear off. The room was empty, so when a hand sat down gently on his shoulder, it caused Wyatt to jump. He whirled around wide eyed. "You startled me, Dr. Nicolae."

"You're dead on your feet, Wyatt," Dr. Ava Nicolae informed him. She didn't exactly look any better than him. "Go home."

He shook his head. "You need the help. I'm here to help." He focused in on her and realized she looked bedraggled rather than tired, so maybe she actually had slept at some point.

"Wyatt, you need sleep," she countered. "I know you're a volunteer, so we don't pay you to be here, but I'm still a doctor here. Go home, Wyatt. I don't want to see you again until you have slept at least seven hours straight, preferable nine or ten or more. I've been trying to calculate it. I don't think you've been home since this hit San Francisco."

"No," Wyatt admitted reluctantly. "Not exactly."

"I didn't think so," she pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Brian made this. His great-niece, MacKenzie, is fairly good with potions and such. It's not much more than a glorified protein bar, but would I be wrong if I guessed that you hadn't eaten or drank anything more than cup after cup of coffee?"

Wyatt grimaced.

"I thought not."

Wyatt took the protein bar from her and unwrapped it. His stomach growled at him as he bit off a big chunk and started chewing.

"Go home, Wyatt," she repeated. "And don't bother driving. The streets may be clearer than they have been in your lifetime, but I don't trust someone who hasn't slept in three days behind the wheel of a car."

His eyes began drooping, again. "I feel funny," he mumbled.

"Orb home, now, or I'm calling your aunt," she ordered him.

"Did you drug that?"

"No," she declared. "That would be MacKenzie. It's how they got me to sleep yesterday."

Wyatt began to wobble from side to side.

Ava sighed. She should have known the additional time without sleep would make it work faster, she helped him down to the ground and pulled out her cell phone as he slumped over, sound asleep from the sleeping draught in the protein bar. "Paige," she directed the phone. When Paige answered, she said, "Paige, it's Ava. I, um, gave your nephew a sleeping potion. I need you to come pick him up, please."

"You drugged me nephew?" Paige asked, surprised.

"He hasn't slept in three days," Ava informed her. "The kids did it to me yesterday when I stopped in to feed them." She chuckled. "I found Brian's brothers over and his great-niece, MacKenzie, had cooked dinner. Dinner put me to sleep until about an hour ago. Can you come get him?"

"Yeah, just let me give the phone to someone," Paige told her.

A moment later Paige orbed in. She looked down at Wyatt. He was curled up in a ball on the ground. The sleeping potion had done its job well. "Thanks, Ava. I had to send Hank and Hope to bed and Chris is passed out on the couch in the manor attic. I love these kids, but they are pushing themselves too hard."

"We all feel the pressure," Ava reminded her. "Why do you think my kids felt the need to use this on me?"

Paige chuckled. "So far I've managed to be the one giving the orders rather than taking them. Of course I'm the only one whose family is intact. Prue's on a death watch more or less for her husband. Piper won't leave Leo's side and he's still in relatively good condition, considering. And we still have no idea where Phoebe and Coop are. Since Henry and I are both here and still healthy, that leaves us. Hank spent the last couple of days looking through the Book of Shadows. Leo already told us that this rings no bells for him."

"I just wish we knew what was causing it," Ava commented. "If we knew the cause maybe we could cure it."

"We managed to confirm that it has happened before," Paige informed her, "but we still don't know much about it."

"It's happened before?" Ava repeated surprised. "Wouldn't an epidemic as bad as this have been recorded in history?"

Paige shook her head. "From the sound of it, someone appears to have erased info from our Book of Shadows. And if they did that, why not other history books? Also, we were told that it wasn't anywhere near this bad the last time, probably because they had info from the time before that. Someone's directing this and when last time didn't go the way they wanted, they changed the rules. They found a way to erase written records of what happened." She bent down and put her hand on Wyatt's shoulder. "I better get him out of her, so I can get back to the other kids. I think we might actually be getting somewhere."

"I hope you find something and soon," Ava told her. "Too many people have died all ready."

Paige nodded and orbed both herself and Wyatt out of the hospital break room. When she reappeared in Wyatt's bedroom, she faced the problem of figuring out how to get him into his bed. He was a bit bigger than she was, so this was going to be tricky.

She looked down at him and considered her options. She considered trying to orb him onto the bed, but the only way she could see that working was to climb on his bed herself and orbing him to her. She'd leave that as a last resort.

The first thing she did was peel back his covers. Next she propped him up so that he was at least sitting. A sound followed by a yawn led her to believe he wasn't totally asleep yet. "Wyatt, I need you to work with he here."

There was a mumble sound and his head leaned over. His eyes remained closed.

When Paige moved to try and get under his shoulder he accommodated her. She was able to get him standing with her help and then sitting on the bed. Once he was on the bed it was a simple matter to divest him of his shoes and socks. She pushed him down so that his head lay on the pillow and then she attempted to put his feet on the bed. This proved interesting when one leg sprang out and kicked her.

"Watch it, Mister," she scolded her sleeping nephew.

When she tried, again, she managed to get his legs up on the bed. She pulled the sheets up and tucked him in.

"Sleep well," Paige whispered before she orbed out. Wyatt needed his sleep, but she was needed in the attic hopefully finding some way to put a stop to this magical disaster without killing seventy million people to do it.

* * *

Wyatt needed the sleep. Maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to do to him, but he needed the sleep.

In the next chapter it's time to learn what someone Up There knows about this, because someone was there in Duxbury in 1637. Josias is going to feel awkward talking to the Halliwells.


	10. The Extra Day

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - Yeah, sorry about that. You're getting closer and closer to being caught up with where I am at. Hopefully though I will be able to deal with the my issue that is causing my problems before you get to that point. I have the rest of this story and the next outlined, so hopefully, I will be able to get them done soon.

Josias has learned some info from Up There and he's coming to share it with the Halliwells. Think he'll be able to help them?

You also get to learn a bit about Ladybug outside of the family.

* * *

Chapter Nine – The Extra Day

5:45AM

Jani picked up a blanket from the pile they had made earlier and covered Chris to his chin. "Do you think we can do this?" she asked in a soft voice as she walked over to where Ladybug was looking through potions Piper had stockpiled on the shelves.

"We have to," Ladybug replied. "Or someone does, so why not us?"

"It's an awful lot of pressure," Jani admitted. "And what if we have to use this spell that kills everyone who's sick?"

"We have to find the spell first," Alanna retorted. "Right now we don't have the slightest clue where to look." She rumpled up a piece of paper and tossed it into a trashcan they had brought up. "And I suck at writing a new one."

Ladybug gave a shallow laugh. "You and me both. Mom despairs of my ever being good at any type of magic. I can't write spells and I can't make potions. I can't control me levitation power. It seems to only work when I'm asleep. And I can't fight."

Jani chuckled. "I _know_ that's not true. I've seen you."

"When?" Ladybug demanded.

"Oh, not against demons," Jani admitted, "but I know several people in school who are more than a bit scared to mess with anyone named Halliwell because 'Rudy' Halliwell will get them."

"Rudy?" Ladybug asked, genuinely laughing this time. "Sounds like Tanya Randolph. Most people at school call me Prudence or Prue, but she always did want to be unique."

"There's a lot of Randolph's in school," Jani laughed. "I don't think anyone still in school thinks of you as anything but Rudy. You've got a reputation and I believe a bloody nose and a black eye were involved."

"I forgot about that," Ladybug admitted. "She was picking on Cilly because Cilly had managed to break up her and her boyfriend. I hadn't meant for it to get physical, but thinks got out of hand. I hardly think a street brawl qualifies me to fight demons."

"No," Jani conceded, "but it's a start."

White orb lights filled the center of the room drawing the attention of the three girls to the center of the room. When they formed into Josias the three girls looked at each other puzzled.

"Who are you?" Alanna was the first to ask.

Jani aimed her palm at him. "We can take you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Josias returned. "I'm not your enemy."

"Then, we'll hear that name," Ladybug informed him.

"Josias," he answered easily. "Ask him if you need confirmation," Josias suggested pointing to Chris' slumbering form.

"He's earned his sleep," Ladybug argued. "It's been a long week."

"I think I know that," he replied. "I'm based in New York City. I've already lost one charge," he informed them with a catch in his voice. "And pretty soon most of my other charges will be in mourning. A few more hours and . . ." He heaved in a deep breath. "But this isn't about me. Kevin asked me to come here, because he trust your family. I'm supposed to talk to the Charmed Ones, though."

"There are no Charmed Ones," Ladybug scowled. "Mom's missing. Don't you understand that? No Mom, no Charmed Ones."

"I don't suppose it really matters," he sighed. "They believe the spell can be lifted by thirteen witches, but I've thought it through and you don't have that either."

"Thirteen witches?" Paige asked from the doorway. "Why's that?"

"Elizabeth believes that thirteen warlocks cast this," he informed her, "and They believe it would take a like number of witches to reverse it."

"That's easy enough," Paige replied. "Piper, Prue, and I make three. Add Piper's three kids, Phoebe's three, Prue's two, and my three and you've got fourteen. And that's without Phoebe."

He shook his head. "Unfortunately, that's not correct. They can't just be witches. They have to be able to cast spells. Three of those cannot which means you only have eleven."

Paige frowned. She was silent as she tried to figure out who he meant. Two names came to mind. "You mean because Pat hasn't gotten her powers back? And Hope hasn't come into them yet?"

He nodded.

"But that's only two," Paige protested.

"That still leaves us one short," Jani admitted.

Josias shook his head. "Three. You're missing one."

"But who?" Alanna asked confused. "Vicki got her powers back and Melinda can cast spells."

He frowned. "Perhaps it isn't my place to tell you, but rest assured, there is another witch in your family who can't cast spells."

"But who?" Alanna demanded.

He sighed. "Can we get back on topic?"

"Hank's been trying to hide it," Ladybug commented, "but something's been bugging him for months now. I think that's who you mean, isn't it?"

Hanks' mom and sisters looked at Ladybug sharply.

"But Hank can cast spells," Alanna protested. "When we were little, he was always besting both of us in spell casting. He always knew where to find the spell we needed for our lessons. He always was the quickest to cast a spell when Uncle Leo was trying to teach us."

"I don't know what happened or why he could cast spells then, but not now," Josias informed her apologetically. "However, your cousin is right. Your brother cannot cast spells.

"He must absolutely hate that," Alanna commented, looking upset.

"I should have noticed," Jani lamented.

Paige didn't respond, but she looked sad. She hadn't noticed what was going on with her son either. "Unfortunately we don't have time for helping Hank right now. You said you thought thirteen witches could reverse this. Why don't we just make some phone calls? We know a few other witches."

Josias shook his head. "That won't work."

"Why not?" she leveled him with a look.

"Because the thirteen warlocks Elizabeth believes are responsible for this," Josias replied unaffected by her annoyance, "were, maybe are, a mother, her children, and grandchildren. Familiar bonds, as you must know well, make a spell stronger. It's part of what allows you harness the power of three, to be Charmed. That's as strong as an family coven, probably stronger. The bond of family works in your favor, but it also works against you when someone else uses it. They are looking in to it, but so far they haven't found any families of witches large enough. But you're the Charmed Ones."

"No Charmed Ones," Ladybug repeated. "Remember. No Phoebe; no Charmed Ones."

He sighed. "There's still three of you. You are sisters. Have you ever tried to cast a power of three spell?"

Paige nodded. "We did. It didn't work."

He sighed. "Then, I don't know what to say."

"Perhaps tell us what spell to cast if we actually find something," she suggested. "Or maybe tell us who we're looking for."

"Elizabeth said . . ."

"Who's Elizabeth?" Paige demanded.

"Someone who was there when Duxbury was first infected," he informed her.

"You have a date for that?" she asked surprised.

"April 27, 1637," he confirmed.

"You're sure?"

He shook his head. "No. But she is. She was just a little girl, but she says they found bodies on what looked like an alter that day."

"That's horrible, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with . . ."

"What's today?"

She frowned. "May 6th."

"To be more precise, it's May 6, 2027," he announced. "Three-hundred-and-ninety years and nine days ago."

"Nine days?" Paige shook her head. "No one started showing symptoms until . . ."

"The next day," he interrupted. "Believe me, I know. One of my charges had a friend who lived in Duxbury. That friend is now dead. He first started showing symptoms on April 28th."

"Which doesn't prove that he was infected the day before," Ladybug pointed out.

"I know," he agreed. "Catherine Jackson didn't show any symptoms, but in 1897, she died when a spell was cast to end this."

"Catherine Jackson?" Paige looked at him questioningly.

"A charge of Elizabeth's," he informed them. "I guess I don't really have a lot to tell you, but Kevin wanted you to know what we did know. Someone cut off the way to Up There. They're working on it, but they don't know how it happened. We can only assume that Willamina, one of her kids or grandkids was behind it."

"Willamina?"

Josias looked at Jani. She hadn't said much. "Willamina Richmond. Elizabeth said she was the matriarch of the family. Elizabeth described her as a rather cold woman who enjoyed pain. She also said that she was good at hiding that. She wasn't friendly, but she was respected. Her daughter was the scary one. No one would have thought Willamina was evil, but Elisa scared them all."

"If she knew this, why didn't she say anything sooner?" Alanna wanted to know.

"I believe the saying is 'hindsight is twenty-twenty'," Josias commented. "She always thought Elisa was creepy, but she didn't connect the dots until 1897 when she was visiting family graves in Duxbury and ran into Marie, one of Willamina's other daughters. Marie didn't see her, or so she believes, but the fact that she was there told Elizabeth she was in some way magical. She started putting together the pieces then, but it had been over one hundred years since she's even thought about this. When she heard this started in Duxbury, she remembered. She doesn't know how to stop it and since she has known about magic she hasn't been involved beyond the loss of her charge in 1897, so she doesn't know what they did to stop it then. She doesn't even know why _they_ are." He sighed and looked at them sadly. "I wish I knew more. In a matter of a few hours five of my charges will have lost their dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I've lost one charge and three more are in different stages of this."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "If you have any questions for me and Chris isn't awake to call me here, call this number. It belongs to the husband of one of my charges. Despite being a nonmagical human who lives in New York City he has yet to show any symptoms, but his father-in-law is the one that's on his deathbed." He handed the paper to Paige. "He'll know how to reach me. And I can reach the elders. As things stand right now, I'm one of only two people that appear to be able to do that. I'm going back to my charges now."

They watched him orb out and then looked at each other.

"Did we learn anything?" Jani asked.

"Well, it definitely started in 1637," Ladybug announced.

"And we've got names," Alanna added. "They may have found a way to erase all data on the witch's fever, but maybe there's some data on them somewhere."

"I think we need everybody helping with this," Ladybug commented looking over regretfully at Chris.

Jani shook her head. "He'll be no use to us. Let him sleep longer."

"We need someone who can write spells," Ladybug persisted.

Jani looked at her mom. "Well, Mom can. Can't you?"

Paige nodded. "I can try my hand at it. It's been a few years, but I've managed to write a spell or two in my time."

Alanna exhaled. "Then, let's get on it. I'm going to downstairs and check the news. It may not help much, but I want to know."

Paige shuddered. "We'll see you in a few minutes."

As Alanna headed downstairs the other three got back to work. They needed to make sense of what Josias had said and they needed to find a way to put a stop to this soon.

* * *

As you might have noticed, most of Josias' information came from Elizabeth. That's mostly because Elizabeth grew up in Duxbury. That should give you a fair idea of how long she's been a whitelighter. In the first chapter, there are two names mentioned that aren't related to either the Warrens or the Richmonds. They are part of her family.

In the next chapter you will get to know a bit of the mind of one of my more creepy characters. I don't really know how to make her as creepy as she really is. Not sure I'd show her as creepy as she is if I could.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	11. It's Time

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - Thank you. So do you think they will be able to use what they learned.

Jordina - Awesome to see you caught up! Yep, this story has a lot of potential to make people (including this author . . . and I know what's going to happen) nervous. No, no one will . . . oh, man *slaps forehead* . . . I totally forgot about something in my struggle to write a chapter I'm working on. I've been trying to write it for two weeks and I thought I was done, but I guess I still have work to do . . . stupid warlocks.

Sorry about the wait on this. I hope you enjoy the chapter. I have been having trouble with a chapter that is fast approaching and pretty much neglected updating anything. I think with this chapter, I have updated every site I wanted to (or at least those where I have something to update with).

Elisa is probably the creepiest character I have ever written and I'm not entirely sure I can convey that as well as I'd like, but this should give you a good idea.

* * *

Chapter Ten – It's Time

6AM

The air had the distinct stench of death. In other words, it was the sweetest perfume.

Elisa Richmond pulled her dagger out of the man's chest and held it up in front of her face. She watched fascinated as drops of blood fell off the blade to the ground. She would never grow tired of that. With one last look at her victim, she let the knife swing loose from her hand. The look of surprise when she had carved the first mark into his still living body had been most gratifying. She adored the screams their fear and pain produced.

In the hour since she had begun she let her victim die a slow lingering death unable to fight her with anything but his screams and curses. She enjoyed the chase, but once she started her art she didn't want movement to cause her to make a mistake.

The look of blood on the human body was such a beautiful thing. She didn't understand why no one seemed to see that. Marie made such a fuss about making a clean kill. Clean. As in no blood. It was utterly pointless. Death held no meaning without the beauty of the blood. She hadn't liked the original plan for the curse, so she had altered it. The liquefying organs was not quite a satisfying as it would have been if they had bleed out, but some concessions had to be made and Louisa had been quite adamant that she didn't want blood all over the place. She didn't care what Elisa did in her spare time, but blood simply was not the decorating theme Louisa wanted.

Elisa walked away from the man and headed toward the small run down shack. She pushed open the door and cast an evil grin at Rebecca and Caroline. She took in their ghostly forms with a giddy laugh.

Caroline squealed and ran away from the window where she liked to spend her time. She coward next to her mother and looked over at Elisa.

Elisa never grew tired of scaring the little girl. It always brought about a delicious chill.

Rebecca pulled Caroline up onto her lap and glared at Elisa. She was no longer afraid. Elisa sometimes wondered if she had ever been afraid.

Elisa walked up to the mother and daughter with narrow eyes. She stopped with her face inches from Caroline's wide eyes and said, "Boo!"

Caroline screamed and buried her face in her mother's chest.

Elisa just laughed. She had so much fun taunting this little girl. It was a pity she couldn't keep them here when the curse wasn't actively working, but perhaps this time it would work the way it was meant to. She held up her bloody knife to Rebecca's face. At the startled look of revulsion on Rebecca's face she felt a bit of glee. She knew Rebecca wasn't afraid of her knife. She was, after all, dead. Elisa should know.

She eyed Rebecca and walked away. Really. How had this woman managed to catch and hold a man like Patrick Warren anyway? There was really nothing to recommend her, Elisa lamented as she looked over mother and daughter. They shared the same dirty blonde hair color that had popped up later in Rebecca's only grandchild, Melinda. David's was been similar, but Samuel shared the medium brown hair of Patrick.

Patrick Warren's death was another death she didn't regret. Though she hadn't personally killed him, she had seen to it that he would die. He'd told her no. No one told her no.

And then, thirty-three years later history had repeated itself when Samuel Warren had rejected her. Why should she care about his pregnant wife? She'd dealt with that. Or she tried to. It wasn't her fault that Ruth had failed.

She had almost killed Samuel for rejecting her, but she had decided that it would be far too generous. Kill him and he would join his father. He would never join his mother. The spell had assured that Patrick would never see his wife again, not even in death. That would teach him to reject her.

It was a slightly hallow victory since she couldn't have him either, but she figured if she couldn't have what she wanted, destroy it. She didn't want Patrick to ever get his family back. And that is when she had thought of the perfect revenge.

The first thing she had done when Patrick had rejected her was find a way to hurt him. She had done so by causing his older son to be badly injured in an "accident" which, much to Elisa's delight, had also caused young David to lose his eyesight.

Much to her annoyance, he hadn't let that slow him down much, so when she decided to punish his brother it had only seemed fitting to include him when she cast her spell on his brother. If she had her way Patrick Warren would never see his family again.

Having spent too much time daydreaming about the past, Elisa looked down at Caroline cowering in Rebecca's arms. It was indeed the most perfect revenge. No one ever turned her down.

"It's time. Isn't it?"

Elisa looked at her startled. In all the times she had come to taunt Rebecca, with all the screams she had elicited from Caroline, never once had Rebecca said anything. Now that she had, Elisa was puzzled by her words. "Time for what?"

Hugging her little daughter to her, Rebecca looked Elisa in the eye. Her ghostly form seemed to serve to enhance the glare in her eyes.

"Time for what?" Elisa repeated. Suddenly she needed to know what Rebecca meant. It was more than just curiosity. Rebecca knew something and Elisa had an idea it wasn't just random. What else could make her talk after all this time?

Rebecca seemed content to just let Elisa wonder which only made Elisa mad. "You can't just say that and not explain."

Rebecca smoothed her hand down her daughter hair and rocked her in her arms. She looked so comfortable it made Elisa sick.

"Time for what?" Elisa demanded.

Rebecca tilted her head to the side and an in an even tone she said five words. "Time for you to die."

* * *

So now that you have gotten another look at Elisa and Rebecca from the prologue, one still alive, one a trapped ghost, what do you think of them?

In the next chapter the bad news just keeps piling on and they are about to learn another thing that is going on behind the scenes.


	12. Bed News and Worse News

First a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - Elisa is supposed to give you the chills, so I guess that works. And I much prefer your reaction to Rebecca to another I got. They thought she was psycotic . . . she was just mad and reading the signs that this would be over soon . . . at least for Elisa. Your description of how Rebecca looked when she said that is pretty much how I saw her in my head. As for action, it's coming, not quite here, but soon. The chapter I am having trouble with is an action chapter, but there is action even sooner than that.

As if things couldn't be worse . . . they have to add this.

* * *

Chapter Eleven – Bad News and Worse News

6:15AM

"As if the people of North America don't have enough to worry about with the short life span of anyone with the witch's fever," the reporter on the TV informed Alanna and anyone else watching, "now they have to worry about someone making that time even shorter."

Alanna froze. She'd gotten the terrifying number of the current death count along with the best collected number of the sick, so she'd been about to turn off the TV. Now, that would have to wait.

"Hospitals all in three New England have suffered premature loss of patents as some unknown assailant or group of assailants has been going into hospitals and snuffing the life out of them," the reported announced. "The assailant's favorite method of killing seems to be suffocating his victims with the pillow off their hospital bed, though six victims believed to be the work of the same killer have had their windpipe crushed and one victim who survived was having the blood dripped out of him through an IV when attendants came across him. Family is relieved that the hospital staff located him in time. That patient is identified only as being in stage five of the witch's fever. The people who found him may have only put off his death by a few hours."

Alanna watched the reporter with horror. She wondered if these deaths were included in the death count she had just heard for the witch's fever victims. Somehow she doubted it, which meant the number of deaths connected to all this was even higher.

"In the twelve hours since police have noticed the pattern they have identified at least thirty-eight victims of this killer in sixteen hospitals. Most were stage four or five witch's fever patents. Most would have been dead by now but that's not making any of us feel any better."

"No kidding," Alanna mumbled to herself.

"An hour ago four patients in an Eastern Massachusetts hospital brought the total number of known victims up to thirty-eight. Three of the patients were stage five witch's fever patients. The fourth, though, was one of the few people in the hospital who had not contracted the disease."

Alanna blinked in surprise. She hated seeing all this death, but it kind of surprised her that someone who seemed to be specifically killing victims of the witch's fever would make a mistake or worse specifically target someone who wasn't sick with it.

"The fifteen-year-old victim has not been identified other than to say that he or she was the victim of a car accident some weeks ago," the reporter announced.

Alanna grimaced. Poor kid was younger than she was. This whole thing was just so awful. She flicked off the TV as the reporter started on a new topic. She left the room and headed up stairs. She stopped when she got to the guest room where her little brother lay sleeping. She pushed opened the door and walked inside.

Hank was facing the wall with one leg sticking out from underneath the covers. He must have found it comfortable, because as she stood there watching he'd didn't move an inch.

She walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed by his pillow. She smoothed the hair on his forehead and sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't notice you were having troubles with magic, little brother. I've been so caught up in finally having magic of my own that I didn't realize that you quit casting spells. I wish you would have confided in me. When this is all over we are going to have a long talk." She leaned down and kissed his cheek.

Hank's cheek twitched pulling an amused look from Alanna. "Even in sleep . . ." she mumbled as she got off the bed and continued toward the attic.

"How bad is it?" Ladybug asked as Alanna closed the attic door behind her a few moments later.

"How bad do you think?" Alanna snapped back. "Fourteen-thousand-six-hundred-and-eleven dead," she recited with a gulp. "And some creep has been taking advantage of the situation to kill even more. "They've killed thirty-eight people so far or at least that the police have found. At least one was not sick with the witch's fever." She looked at her mom. "Why do they do this? Why do people do this?"

Paige walked over to her daughter and put her arms around her. "I don't know."

"I found something," Jani announced as she flipped her laptop around for them to see. She'd had her mom orb her home to get it while her sister was downstairs.

"Something useful?" Paige asked, hopefully.

"Probably not," she admitted. "It's a blog from a week or so ago, the 27th. It's kind of cryptic, but I get the idea this gal knows something." Jani scribbled something onto a piece of paper and handed it to Ladybug. "Here, 'Rudy', can you call on this lady, find out what she remembers?"

Ladybug frowned. "Why me? You're the one who knows what to ask."

"I can't orb," Jani pointed out. "You on the other hand can . . . well, whatever it is you can do."

"You don't pay much attention to cupid powers, do you?" Ladybug teased. "Nope," Jani admitted, "but what you do is _not_ what your dad does, so I'm guessing knowing cupid powers wouldn't help in this case." When Ladybug didn't do anything she asked, "Are you going to get going?"

Ladybug chuckled and disappeared in pink hearts.

Paige watched bemused. It was interesting seeing her kids learning to deal with magical problems. She turned her attention to her older daughter still snuggling in her arms. "Alanna, you told us the death count. Did they say the sick count?"

Alanna nodded. "There's already over two million cases in Europe and Africa. It's been a day since they started showing signs over there. Current total worldwide is somewhere just short of one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-million. At this rate, it could be one billion by tomorrow."

"No," Paige announced, causing her daughters to look at her. "Tomorrow, no one will be sick."

Jani looked at her confused.

Alanna frowned. "Mom?"

"One way or the other," Paige told them, "we end this today."

* * *

If you get to close to the fire, you get burned. One character is going to get a little to close to the action and it will hurt.


	13. Deadly Forest

First, an apology to my readers for taking so long. It's been a long couple of months, especially the last week of last month and the first week of this one. As if it wasn't busy enough with birthdays, throw in a tornado. Thankfully my family was all unharmed, as well as our home and jobs. I know a lot of people who lost a lot, some who lost everything but themselves and many who lost a loved one.

Second, a thank you to my reviewers:

ForeverCharmed01 - I'm sorry that it took a while to make sense. This story is kind of set up like a mystery, though you know more of the puzzle pieces then most mysteries. Phoebe and Coop situation will be revealed in full (possibly some major clues before then, not sure) in "Paying the Piper". That's . . . the fourth episode after this one, I think. As to Henry, he's not the only mortal not affected. Only a smmall number of those in his department were affected and I know it's not mentioned, but I'm pretty sure Victor hasn't shown any signs of anything. There is a very specific reason on that as well as why Jason, little Pansy's grandfather, and the nonmagical mortal mentioned in this chapter haven't been affected. Paige is doing pretty good at keeping herself together and she's not letting the kids run all over her. She's keeping everyone organized and some of them she's keeping sane.

Soraya - I'm glad you like how I am handling Paige in this story.

ThomasNealy - It always impresses me that someone can read through them that quickly. And I'm very glad that your enjoying it. Smart thinking on the spell. That actually is coming. I won't say if it will work or not, but they will definitely be trying that later on. As to Phoebe, that's an interesting point. I haven't actually focused in on what they have and haven't tried to find her. Most of that has been done behind the scenes, but there was most likely several attempts to magically summon Phoebe when everyone was gathered together during "Wyatt's Friend". And thanks for being a catalyst. Things have been crazy lately, but since receiving your review I've been trying update everything. I'm way behind on my site, so I uploading nineteen chapters (still have about twice that to upload there). I uploaded a new chapter on one site (the one where I am most up to date) and plan to upload another chapter to a different story there. I'm also updating this story (and hopefully another) here.

Remember in "When Two Wrongs Make a Right" you met a witch who hasn't really chosen a side, well, she chose to apply to "The Manor" out of a sense of adventure and she's decided to go to the middle of the trouble when everyone else is trying to get away from there. She's been exploring for several days, but this time she's found something bad.

* * *

Chapter Twelve – Deadly Forest

6:30AM (9:30AM in Duxbury)

The forest was a beautiful place, but that wasn't the reason Addison Rooks found herself there. When the news had first come that a small New England had been quarantined, Addison hadn't thought much of it. Then, it had started to spread and people started to get scared. Before the first person died, Addison over heard her parents talking. Her mother might not have had any magical powers, but she knew magic. It was how she had met Addison's father, a witch like his daughters.

Usually talk of magic was a rather uninteresting subject when the senior Rooks discussed it. That day, though, it had been anything but. Addison had been grabbing something out of the fridge when four words had reached her ears:

* * *

_"I will die, Jonathan."_

_Addison froze and looked in the direction of the den. The door was only cracked open a little, so she couldn't see her parents inside._

_"You don't know that, Aria," Jonathan Rooks protested._

_Ariadne Rooks' voice sounded of a mixture of sadness and amusement. "You are not even fooling yourself. This is magic bound. We all know that. And it is not harming the magical among us. You and the girls will be fine."_

_"Not without you, we won't," Jonathan protested, again. "We need you, Aria."_

_"If this does not stop," she reminded him, "eventually it will take me, too."_

* * *

Addison had hated hearing those words. She'd gone back down the hall and up the stairs to her sister's room. That was when she'd started planning this little "vacation". Arielle had been skeptical at first, but Addison couldn't blame her. Addison often did things her little sister didn't approve of. When it came to protecting their parents, though, Arielle was more than willing to work with her.

Addison had left Arielle behind in the hotel room. Seeing as they were the only guests in the hotel, the girls had decided to splurge. They had gotten the best room and ordered up all the room service they could get. Now, Addison stood in the middle of a beautiful forest. She had spent the last several days exploring all around Duxbury. So far she had found nothing. She wasn't sure what she expected to find, but she had a feeling she would find something and that whatever it would be, it would be obvious.

The problem was, until something obvious came along, she didn't actually have any clue where to look. She sighed and continued walking deeper into the forest. A sound caught her attention and she stopped. Looking around, she saw nothing, but it caused her to tense up. There was enough out there that Addison was on edge.

She was so busy looking ahead that she didn't look down. Instead she almost tripped. She looked down to see what she had run into and her eyes widened as she backed away.

At her feet was a man's bloody body. He looked like someone had carved symbols into his body. She didn't recognize them, but she saw enough to realize this was creepy. Taking deep shaky breaths she tried to calm herself. She looked away for a moment and then forced herself to squat down and feel for pulse. She grimaced as her fingers touched the sticky blood on his neck. She held her fingers there long enough to prove he wasn't living and then she jerked her hand away. She gulped as she back away, trying not to notice the stab wound near the man's heart or the blood trail leading away from the body.

She wiped her fingers on the grass, trying to get rid of the blood on them. She was more or less satisfied that the blood was gone when she begun to stand. A moan caused her to freeze.

She looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. Considering she hadn't found the source of the early sound, she wasn't sure she was ready to admit that the sound was even real. When she heard it a second time, she turned her head to face it. She focused her eyes in the direction of the moaning.

She kept looking, straining her eyes toward the sound of the moan, until she found a leg sticking out from behind a tree. Inhaling sharply, she stood and hurried over to the tree. She found a second man just as bloody as the first. Instead of a stab wound to the chest, he had been stabbed in the stomach. And even more importantly, unlike the first man . . . this one was still breathing. She squatted down next to him.

He reached up, grabbed her wrist, and looked at her. "Don't drink the water!"

"W-w-what?" she stammered.

"The water," he repeated. "Don't drink the water." His hand grew slack and dropped.

She starred at him stunned. She grimaced, but she checked him for a pulse. It was thready and getting worse by the second, so she closed her eyes.

She focused her attention on his body. In her mind's eye she saw his severed arteries and stomach muscles clamp themselves together. Keeping focus on this she slowly dragged him to the edge of the forest where her rented car was. She knew her power could not heal him, but as long as she stayed focused she could keep him alive until she found someone who could.

She forced herself to ignore the blood. Once she started driving she had to stop focusing on him. It was a pity she didn't bring a chauffeur with her, though how she would have explained all of this to a chauffeur, she wasn't sure. In that moment she wished she hadn't gotten Sonya to quit on her. She was glad to be done with all of Sonya's lectures, but the only way she thought she could save this man was with a whitelighter. Perhaps a call to her sister would bring Sonya here, but right now, she suspected she didn't have time. There had been two injured men in those woods and one of them had been dead. If the person behind that was still around, she didn't know how she could defend herself. Even she wasn't about to break the rule about exposing magic. There were some things you just didn't do.

"Sonya," she whispered as she climbed into the driver's seat. She closed her eyes and sighed. She hadn't expected a response and she didn't get one.

* * *

Addison doesn't much like human blood (as a chef, she can deal with animal blood), but she can't just leave him there. What do you think will happen to him?

In the next chapter Seth's back from the underworld, but there's not a lot for him to report. Extremely long range foreshadowing in this next chapter.


	14. Guilty

First, a thank you to my reviewers:

Soraya - It was a little bit more than a falling out. Sonya asked to have someone else assigned to Addison. And they did assign someone else to her. This whitelighter has not yet met Addison. As I am fairly certain I have not previously explained this, I understand the confusion. As to the new whitelighter, remember how they haven't mangaged to reach Sam? This whitelighter is in a simular situation. Except I'm fairly certain Sam's enjoying himself a LOT more. Eventually this will be explained in greater detail, but as that is part of the story that I want the readers to learn with the characters, I will stop with that.

Stacey - Welcome back! I'd missed seeing your reviews. I'm glad that you went ahead and reviewed from your iPod anyway. I've recently been given an inkling of how really annoying that is myself. I've decided to contain my FF activities to my laptop as a result. Yeah, I'm glad that we are all all right, but I know a lot of people who aren't and it's horrible. I have one coworker who was recovering from surgery when it happened and he was in his house when the tornado destroyed his house and killed his dad. I've only seen him once since the tornado. My boss is apparently moving out of the area because he lost his home and that's where his wife/fiancee (not sure which) can find work. It really makes you thankful for what you have. Back to your review, I don't think Addison will think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . except for the blood. She can't stand human blood, but if she can save this guy, she'll be okay with that. Surprising twists . . . yeah. Those happen. Usually when I'm writing and a character pops up and says "Hey, what about me? I was there, too. Tell my part of the story." And then the story they tell me is truly bizarre. Glad you enjoy them.

The magical community may know that this is magical in origin, but the nonmagical community still is scratching their heads completely clueless. This particular chapter includes a man who honestly believes it's his fault that some of these people are sick.

And don't forget that foreshadowing . . . long, long range. Probably it will be one of those things you look back on and go "Oh! That's what she meant."

* * *

Chapter Thirteen – Guilty

8AM

The hospital was fuller than it had been when Seth left for the Underworld. He walked down the hall. Few official hospital staff roamed the halls, but a lot of people appeared to be volunteers. They had stopped worrying about visitors, but as best he could tell, most of those visitors were either in the rooms or on chairs and couches outside the room. Few of them actually walked the halls. It took several minutes and dozens of apologies as he bumped into people, but he finally managed to reach the outside of his brother's hospital room. He looked in and saw that another patient had been brought in and his dad had fallen asleep. There was a pair of girls a little younger than Peter asleep on the floor by the second bed. The man in the bed was the only one awake.

"Your family?" the man asked with a nod at Derek and Peter. There were rings around his eyes, letting Seth know that despite being awake he was very tired. There was something else in his eyes, sadness, maybe guilt. Seth wondered if maybe he'd lost someone recently, maybe the mother of the two girls on the floor.

Seth nodded. "My dad and my little brother. Your daughters?" he asked, indicating the two girls. One of them yawned and rolled over.

"Nieces," he replied, the haunted look taking full control of his face. "When my brother and sister-in-law got sick they had me come get them. They're both stage five, now." That must be why he looked so sad. His brother was about to die. It probably wasn't much consolation that he might only survive his brother by a few days, especially since the girls were here. They probably had no place else to go.

"Sorry to hear that," Seth told him, deciding that he should leave. He didn't have time to get involved in someone else's sad story. Maybe if he found something these little girls wouldn't lose everyone they had in the world.

"Aren't you going to ask?" The man asked sounding genuinely confused.

"Ask what?" Something was going on here, something beyond the usual fear of death.

"If this is my fault that it reached San Francisco," the man informed him. He seemed surprised that he'd had to say it.

Seth shook his head. "No." Of course he wasn't going to ask. There was no possible way this guy had brought this here.

"No?" he man seemed almost shocked. "Why not? Everyone else does."

Seth shrugged. "I know it's not your fault." That was an understatement. He knew this was magical. He also knew it had passed through quarantines without looking back. This wasn't passed from human to human.

"How?" the man asked. He sounded like a man drowning given a life preserver. "How do you know?"

Seth glanced at his father and brother. "Because, despite not leaving my brother's side since he was diagnosed, my dad's not sick. In fact people holding vigil over their loved ones bed seem to be far less likely to get sick. As best I can tell, this cannot be passed from person to person. You are not responsible."

The man sighed. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Seth argued. Even if he was glad he could reassure this man, that was all he could do, at least for now. "I can't heal you any more than I can heal my brother. I wish I could." Deciding now was not the time to visit his brother, Seth left the room. He wandered down the hall and took the stairs to get to the floor he wanted rather than an elevator.

He stopped short of his goal by a dozen feet or so. Sound asleep on a bench outside of Leo's room was Wyatt and Chris' "new" sister. In sleep she seemed peaceful, less confrontational. That surprised him somehow. His first, last, and only encounter with her had been anything but peaceful.

A blanket had worked its way down her body and pooled around her legs. When he saw her shiver he pulled it up so that it wrapped around her shoulders. She snuggled into it and mumbled something in her sleep, but she didn't appear to be awake.

Once he was sure that she wasn't going to dump the blanket again in the next five minutes, he continued on into Leo's room. He pushed open the door and looked in.

Inside he found both Piper and Leo awake. There was no one else in the room and they were talking. They both looked up at the sound of the door and smiled at Seth.

"How's Peter doing?" Piper asked as he entered the room.

"Sleeping," Seth informed her. "Dad was sleeping, too, so I thought I'd stop by. How are you, Uncle Leo?"

"Tired and hot," Leo informed him, "but not too bad over all."

Seth sighed. He could see the lines around Leo's eyes. There was no doubt in his mind that Leo was tired. It showed all over him. Still it could be worse. "I'm glad it's not too bad yet, but I wish you didn't have it at all. I've been trying to find someone who knows something, but I don't think anyone does."

"You can't possibly think this is natural!" Piper exclaimed stunned.

"No, of course not," he was quick to assure her. "Something like this that the magical community is immune to can't be natural. I just can't find anybody who knows anything and it's frustrating."

Piper nodded. She knew the feeling. "I was just talking to Prue. Have you met her or Andy?"

"I don't think so," Seth admitted thinking back over the last few months. "I'd heard you got them back."

"They live in Boston," Piper commented, "so they are very close to this. Andy's sick, stage five."

"I'm sorry," was all Seth could think to say.

Piper tried to smile at him, but it came out more like a grimace.

"Mind if I stay here and talk for a while?" he asked after some silence. "I'm not ready to give up, but I need to rest a bit."

"You are welcome to stay," Leo assured him. "We appreciate what you are trying to do."

Appreciation wasn't enough though. Seth needed to find the cure. There had to be something. Wasn't there always something? He feared that when it was found it would be far too late.

* * *

Seth, like everyone else, is feeling very helpless. He can't find anything even though he has searched in places where normally there would at least be talk. Little by little it is eating him up that because he's part manticore, he's immune, but his brother is three days sick and he has now way of know if or when his dad might get infected by it as well.

It's been a while since Addison found the two men in the forest and she's back in the hotel (which, I might add, they have all to themselves) where her sister wants to know what's wrong and wants to help.


	15. The Bloody Trail

First, a thank you to my reviewer:

Soraya - I'm delighted to hear that. He's a lot of fun. It can't be easy to balance being part demon with being part human (as Cole showed us, though Seth, of course, has the advantage of being raised by his human father) and that makes it fun to write him.

Addison is back at her hotel and she's not doing well.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen – The Bloody Trail

8:15 AM (11:15 in Duxbury)

Addison washed the blood off her hands, ignoring her reflection as she thought. Thanks to nearly empty streets and a police escort to deal with the rest of the traffic she had gotten the man to the hospital alive. After what seemed like an eternity she had been allowed to return to her hotel where she had ignored her sister and headed straight to the bathroom to throw up.

They had taken down her cell number, her hotel room number, even her home. They asked her repeatedly why she was vacationing in Duxbury when anyone who could afford it was fleeing as fast as they could. She couldn't tell them that she was trying find a cure before her mom got sick. They'd understand her wanting to find a cure, but they wouldn't understand her believing that there was anything she could do about it.

So much blood. She had never seen so much blood in her life. The idea that someone could lose that much blood and still live was a revelation she wished she had never had the chance to have.

Kneeling on the ground with her head over a toilet bowl had not been the most fun she ever had, but when she finally got up there had been bloody handprints all over the place. In order to deal with the dying man she had forced herself to ignore the blood and it had worked too well. She wasn't seeing much of anything anymore. She wasn't blind, but she wasn't seeing anything.

"Addy?"

Addison looked up from the water running off her hands, but even then she didn't quite look toward the door. She didn't quite look anywhere. She stared straight ahead and despite all the images filtering through her mind . . . she saw nothing. Or at least nothing registered. It was probably a miracle she hadn't killed anyone on the way back to the hotel from the hospital, but the road and those on it must have registered, because she hadn't so much as ran a stop sign.

"Is everything okay, Addy?" Arielle pressed from the other side of the door. She was worried about her older sister. This wasn't normal for Addison.

Addison heaved in a breath and sighed. "Come in, Ari."

Arielle pushed opened the bathroom door and looked inside at her sister. "What happened? There is a blood trail leading here." Her eyes widened as she took in the room. "Did you get cut?"

"It is not my blood."

The lack of emotion in her voice worried her sister. Addison was usually full of mischief and trouble and excitement. This was scaring Arielle.

"Addy? What happened?"

"I was searching the forest around Duxbury," Addison told her in a monotone. In her mind she could see the forest, again. She could remember the moment she had first seen the dead man. She shivered. "I had been there maybe an hour without finding anything."

"And then what?" Arielle pressed as she gave her sister's shoulder a squeeze. Something had happened to change her sister's demeanor. It took a lot to shake Addison. It took more than anything Arielle had ever seen. Her older sister was always the easy going one who never let anything affect her. She'd never cared what anyone though with the recent exception of Piper Halliwell. That was mostly because, for some reason Arielle didn't understand, Addison was obsessed with having a job there.

"I found a body," Addison informed her. "Someone had carved him up."

Arielle grimaced. She'd only seen dead bodies on TV, but they didn't mean she didn't have some idea as to what they looked like. And that certainly didn't mean she liked it. "Is that . . ?"

"I barely touched him," Addison declared, not wanting to hear the question. "I checked for a pulse, just as mother taught us, but there was none."

Arielle waited. She doubted all this blood came from checking someone's pulse.

"Then, I heard a sound, a moan," Addison continued. "I found another man bleeding to death nearby. I could not leave him there and of course Sonya will not hear me when I call." Who would have thought that she would regret chasing Sonya off? It certainly never would have occurred to her.

"You could have called me," Arielle reminded her softly.

"I . . . I do not know," Addison stammered. "It is not easy to think. I used my powers to hold his arteries closed while I got him to the car."

"The car?" Arielle looked at her surprised. "So he made it that far?" She hadn't expected that. Of course maybe the injuries weren't as bad as they sounded, but if Addison had felt the need to use her powers to close his arteries, it must have been bad. Arielle didn't even realize her sister could do that.

Addison nodded. "He was still alive when I reached the hospital. And he was still alive when I drove back here. I left my number with the hospital. I want them to tell me how he is." She stopped and for the first time during this exchange she looked her sister directly in the eye. "He is a witch."

Arielle blinked. "Are you sure?"

She was sure. While she was driving him to the hospital, he had tried and failed to call for his whitelighter. And he'd said something about a warlock. It was all rather difficult to follow, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was a witch. With a quick nod of her head Addison added, "He did not say a lot, but I think he was looking into this sickness that is caused so much trouble."

"You think?"

"All I know for sure is he found something," Addison informed her sister. "It is being passed about through the water, lakes, streams, rivers. That is how everyone is getting it. I guess Mother does not have it because she does not drink tap water."

"Water," Arielle repeated stunned. "You need to tell Mom, warn her. You need to tell everyone."

"How?" Addison posed. "I'm not exactly a known expert on disease."

"The internet," Arielle decided after a minute of silence. "You call mom and dad. I have an idea."

* * *

What do you think Arielle's idea is? And do you think it will help?

The next title will probably give away too much, so I'll just tell you this, we will be back at the Manor.


	16. Trending Topic

First a thank you to my patient reviewers:

Stacey - Sorry I quit posting right after you got your laptop fixed. Hopefully it still works. I've been kind of using my new toy (iPad 2) a lot and while there's a lot of things I can do with it, there's also a lot I can't do with it. Since I do have more of this story complete, I'm going to try (emphasis on try) to post more of it in a timely manor. I'm glad you like Addison. She's an interesting character in that she doesn't worry about little things like boundaries, but at the same time, she's not a blood thirsty killer. She has her self impossed boundaries, but no one's really sure what those are. Yep, Witch's Fever is being passed through the water . . . can you find the hints about that in earlier chapters? There are three major one's that come to mind. The first is when this first started. The second is something someone does who later becomes sick (though I'm fairly certain I never mentioned that she got sick, so that one's hard to find). The last one is someone who's not sick and their choice of beverage.

Soraya - Yeah, I'm not sure how I'd react to finding a bloody body either. I think Addison reacted well compared to what I would react, but I never want to find out for sure. This chapter, though it has taken a long time for me to post it, is the more imediate results of the idea to post it on the internet.

Linnea - Okay, I know you didn't review this story, but since you mentioned wanting me to up date and this is a direct result of my reading that and realizing I hadn't updated in way too long, I thought I'd give you a thank you here. In response to the review you did post, I'm glad you enjoyed the bonus chapter I posted for The Halliwell Death Trap.

Okay, this chapter assumes that twitter is still around in 2027. Fortunately, it's all fictional, so it doesn't matter if it is or not, but I do like twitter.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen - Trending Topic

8:30AM

Paige put down the spell she was working on in order to pull the phone out of her back pocket. It had been vibrating like crazy and was generally driving her crazy. "Hello?"

"Paige, it's Tyler," the voice on the other end stated.

Paige smiled slightly. "Tyler, hi. How are you doing?" It was nice to hear someone's voice outside her family.

"Okay so far," he informed her before quickly running into the reason he called. "Matt was on the computer and he found something you've got to hear. I'm giving the phone to him."

Paige didn't have time to reply before a new voice replaced the first. "There's someone on Twitter telling everyone to avoid tap water."

"What?" Paige's face showed her confusion, but of course Matthew couldn't see that. Why would Matthew think this was important?

"He or she is calling themselves WitchFever," Matthew was quick to inform her.

That got her attention. Someone clearly wanted attention and wanted it fast. The question was: Were they an attention seeker or legitimate? It was clear what Matthew though, so she figured she would give this a fair trial. Besides, every lead was better than none. Slowly they were putting together information. She just hoped that the solution they found wasn't just to put this off for another hundred and thirty years, killing millions in the process including two of her brother-in-laws and countless others she knew, she many innocent lives. So many people that had no idea the only reason they were dying was because magic was real and someone who had magic had decided a killing spree would be fun.

Matthew was still talking, so Paige forced herself to concentrate.

"WF says that the witch's fever is spreading through the water and to either not drink water or else only drink bottled water until this is over. They are also saying avoid coffee, hot chocolate made with water, concentrate juice made with water. This person has half the population of twitter following them. Some people think WF is nuts. Some are scared WF has poisoned the world's bottle water supply. Most people, though, are taking him/her serious."

"What do you think?" Paige asked even as she remembered the "water bottle diet" Henry's boss had their department on. She hadn't thought much about it at the time, but now that she did, the timing was kind of odd. The whole thing was. Was that why almost no one in the department was sick?

"I think it makes sense," Matthew admitted. "I also think WF is a witch."

"Oh?"

"Just a second," he directed. "Let me find it. It's all very vague, but I think I'm right."

Paige waited silently wondering what he had found. She didn't have long to wait.

"Here is it," he announced after several seconds. "This is a response to someone else who said real witches had probably cursed everyone."

"Okay," Paige frowned. She didn't like the sound of that. They didn't need someone starting another witch hunt. She was glad she hadn't dealt with the one when Melinda died and she was even gladder that she hadn't been forced to deal with what Prue had in the other reality. The earlier witch hunt had been small and fairly localized. The one in the other time line had started with Phoebe's death and had continued on with the deaths of hundreds of people, maybe even thousands. Prue didn't like talking about what had happened during the witch hunts, but Paige had gotten bits and pieces.

She knew from Melinda that Melinda's best friend had been a witch and so had her boyfriend. The two had been sister and brother and when one had been caught out as a witch, the entire family had been tested and with the exception of their nonmagical father, the entire family had been executed. According to Melinda they hadn't done anything other than be born witches.

From Vicki she had learned that only one of her children had been born, but Little Henry, as they had called him in the other time line had not survived childhood. Vicki had given her few details and Paige suspected she had few, since Little Henry had been killed by demons before Vicki had been born.

"What do you know of real witches?" Matthew read off the computer screen in front of him.

"That's it?" Paige frowned confused.

"That was how it began," Matthew told her. "It's all rather vague," he repeated, "but I think so. I think I'm right. I hope that helps."

"I'll get the word out about the water," Paige decided. "See if you can get them to tell you how they know and if they know more. Call me if you find out anything else."

"Will do," Matthew assured her with a smile in his voice. "Bye, Paige."

Paige hung up and looked at her daughters. "It's in the water."

The twins looked at each other. "Dad, needs to know," Jani announced. "I'll call him."

Paige shook her head. "No, I'll call him. I need to ask him some questions. Someone at his office might have seen this coming."

* * *

Henry Mitchell had spent the early parts of the morning with an officer whose partner was stage four. It hadn't been a pleasant morning so far and he hadn't even reported to his own department yet. It seemed that there wasn't much call for juvenile parole officers today. Pretty much every kid who so much as had a heart was behaving like angels. Half of the parolees had already been admitted to hospitals with the disease no one could even identify. The other half were either scared for a loved one who was sick or else they were scared they would get it. And none of them knew how to avoid it.

One of the advantages of being married to a witch was when there was a magical disaster he heard about it and knew more details than the general public.

One of the disadvantages of being married to a witch was when there was a magical disaster he heard about it and knew more details than the general public.

Talk about your two-edged sword.

Henry entered his officer and watched the heads in the room turn to look at the door and see who was entering. He took note of the empty desks in the room. Unlike in most departments he didn't assume those desks were empty because someone was on sick leave. Most of them were empty because the rest of the department needed their help. His phone rang and he dug it out of his pocket.

He pushed it open and tapped the "Accept call" button on his cell and put it to his ear. "Is everyone all right?" he asked before his wife had a chance to say anything.

"Not really," was Paige's reply, "but other than Andy being in stage five, no one is worse. I called because there's someone offering what seems to be a reasonable explanation as to how this is getting passed."

Henry exhaled slowly. She was right. No one was all right. Even people who weren't sick weren't all right. Everyone was affected by this. "How reasonable?" he asked as he looked around his office. So far only two of his immediate coworkers had gotten sick. One was stage four. The other was stage one. If he could keep any more of them from getting sick, he certainly would.

"It explains why almost no one in your unit is sick while most of the force is hospitalized," Paige added, echoing her husband's thoughts.  
Henry glanced around at those in the room with him a second time. It was kind of odd that so few of them were sick.

"It's the water, Henry," Paige pronounced. "This is passing through the water. The bottled water your chief insisted on your drinking these last couple of weeks isn't tainted yet."

Henry stared at the bottle of water on his desk. "Are you sure?"

"No," Paige admitted, "but it fits."

"Then, I'm going to talk to the Chief," Henry told her. "He implemented this only days before people started getting sick. And he told us to try and get others to drink only bottled water, too. He might know something."

"No, Henry," she protested, startled. "If he knows something, then he might be dangerous."

"Paige if he knows something , then he's trying to protect us," Henry assured her, or tried to anyway. "I'll be all right. He won't harm me."

"Henry . . ."

"There isn't enough time to argue, Paige," he interrupted. "More people die every minute. We don't have time for this. I love you and if I find anything I'll call." When he hung up he stuffed his cell phone back into his pocket and headed toward his boss' office. If his boss knew something, Henry wanted to know why he wasn't telling everyone. And he wanted to know if his boss knew how to stop it.

* * *

So what do you think is going on in Henry's department?

The next chapter explores what is going on with Prue and her family now that Andy is stage five. In the chapter after that it's back to Duxbury where some surprises are waiting.

If I don't post anything before Christmas (which I will try, but obviously, no promises), then have a merry Christmas.


	17. Getting Through the Door

First a thank you to my patient reviewer:

Soraya - It's not so much that Paige doesn't know about twitter. It's more that she doesn't see why Matthew is "wasting" her time with it until he tells her. As to Henry's bossl: as far as I know we don't know his boss from the show. If we did, that boss retired. This character is entirely mine. I'm still trying to figure out how to fit him in later, because he is relevant to the story.

Everyone has different ways of handling hardship. Everyone has different ways of coping. Vicki is not dealing very well.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen - Getting Through the Door

9AM (Noon in Boston)

The hallways of a hospital had never felt so imposing, the sick within its walls so terrifying. Vicki felt as if she was falling apart from the inside out. When her dad had come in five days, almost six, before he had seemed relatively healthy. He'd fully expected to have them look him over and give him a clean bill of health. They all had.

No one had died then. Some had been pretty sick, but no one had died. So much had changed since then. Thousands were dead, millions were sick. Vicki didn't know of any demon that had done as much damage. It didn't mean there wasn't one, but surely something like this would have stuck out.

Of course nothing had. There probably was nothing to stick out. Even this didn't stick out in times past, but from what she had heard, this had happened before. How was it that no one anywhere had kept a record? How was it that it had never reached this scale before and this time it had? How was it that it had happened before and it hadn't killed off the world's population of nonmagicals, but no one had written down a cure?

What were they thinking?

Surely someone knew. Someone somewhere had to. You didn't just have people getting sick and then have it stop and no one keep a record. She'd spent a day, a full wasted day, in the library in Boston researching Duxbury. What she had found was nothing, a big fat nothing. How could there be nothing?

A man passed Vicki sobbing. He carried a little girl of maybe two or three in his arms. Vicki imagined that poor little girl didn't understand what had happened. Most likely she had just lost a mother or a sibling, maybe a grandparent or a dear friend of her father's.

It was all so unfair! Why did everyone die?

First it had been Grandpa before Vicki had even been born. She'd been named for him. Now, here in this reality, he was alive, but getting to know him was not easy. He was in San Francisco and she was in Boston. There was only so much a person could say over the phone and she needed the tangible proof. With all the people who had died, she needed that proof that he was alive, that after thirteen years of not having a grandfather, she had one. And though she technically had two, the other still eluded a meeting since her dad's father had no clue that his oldest child was alive, again. He had no idea that his son was alive and he had no idea that he was about to lose him, again. Only Uncle Ben and his family knew. And Vicki knew that Uncle Ben was devastated by the loss he was already beginning to feel. Having been unable to enter her dad's hospital room since he went into a coma, Vicki had called Uncle Ben in California and talk to him. It had been seven hours since her dad had gone into a coma and she had alternated talking to her Uncle Ben, her Aunt Alice, and her two Trudeau cousins, Mark and Beth. For seven hours she had talked and now she stood just down the hall from her dad's hospital room.

She didn't think anything had terrified her more.

Slowly she made her way down the hall. She forced herself to take each step. She forced herself not to look to her left or her right, to focus on her goal. She knew if she hesitated she wouldn't get there. She didn't want to see her dad like that.

A few more steps and Vicki reached the room. She felt cold all over as she stood frozen in the doorway to her dad's hospital room. Ever since her mom had told her and Pat that their dad was stage five, Vicki had unable to enter the room. This was the closest she had gotten to it in seven hours. Her mind refused to compute the idea that her dad would not survive the day. She stared into the room, her eyes focused on her dad with all the tubes, wires, and all the best of medical science not doing a thing to prolong her dad's life.

Her traitorous sister seemed perfectly calm as she sat next to their mom and let Prue use her hand as a stress ball. Vicki suspected that is her mom had been the weepy kind, Pat would have offered her a shoulder to cry on.

Pat looked toward the door way, sensing her there. "Come on in. Come see Dad."

Vicki shook her head. "I can't."

"Dad's still alive," Pat assured her. There was pleading in her eyes, as if she needed Vicki, but couldn't ask for her directly.

"But for how long?" Vicki asked, fighting the tears in her eyes. "I don't want to lose him."

"None of us do," Pat reminded her. There was a catch in her voice as she added, "I don't know how to make it better, but there's still time."

"Not enough," Vicki shook her head. Maybe when this started she thought there was plenty of time, but now there didn't seem to be any time left at all. A disease with no known source that killed with no known cure in a matter of five short days. "We've pretty much known magic was being this since before Dad got sick and where has that gotten us. Now, he has, what, five, six hours to live?"

Vicki let out a sob, but she finally forced herself into the room. She looked down at Andy lying so still in the hospital bed. Why couldn't they heal him? She heaved in a breath and looked at her sister. "He's not even awake. We can't even say good-bye. And look at Mom," she added, waving a hand in front of Prue's eyes.

Prue's free hand shot out and grabbed Vicki's. "I lost him once," she reminded her daughters. "I am not losing him, again."

* * *

In the next chapter, Arielle's in for a surprise when she goes to investigate what her sister found. The chapter is called "Sight for the Blind".

Merry Christmas!


	18. Sight for the Blind

First a huge thank you to my very patient readers. I am so very sorry for waiting so long to update, but it has been a very long year. The short version which is hard enough to say and only slightly easier to write is that my dad died in April after a battle with cancer. I have been writing, but not much has been posted and not nearly as much has been written during that time as I normally write. I am now also going to school, again, which is rather time consuming, but I am still writing. I am always still writing. I have every intention to finish this story. I have every intention of finishing this series (currently scheduled for six seasons . . . and considering we are still in season one that should tell you something). If that ever changes I will not abandon you. I will not just vanish forever like I have seen happen in other cases. Obviously I might vanish for long periods of time, because I did this time, but I will not vanish forever. I hope that you will be seeing a lot of me from now on, but we'll just have to see what happens.

Second, a big thank you to my reviewers:

Soraya - Sadly I am still working on learning how to write those more emotional pieces. I think if I were to write it now I might have a better grasp of what they were going through, considering. Cole, huh . . . no comment on that one. A girl has to have some secrets. ;)

Lilac - Glad you have enjoyed them thus far and I certainly intend to keep writing for a long time. And I won't forget my readers even if I have neglected them for a while. I am going to make an effort to update more often, but we'll see. I've tried that before.

Gwen2010 - Then, you will love the next chapter (chapter eighteen) as it has definite reference back to events on the show. I love to bring up things that happened before and as I hate it when characters forget events that happened one episode before let alone seven seasons before, I certainly am trying to keep my characters from forgetting . . . except when I want them to forget, but that's another story . . . literally.

Okay, everyone. Get ready for a dose of Warren family history. Arielle is retracing her sister's steps to learn what it was that someone wanted those two men to not see and she finds something rather surprising.

Enjoy. :)

* * *

Chapter Seventeen – Sight for the Blind

9:05 AM (12:05 PM in Duxbury)

Arielle pulled the car to a stop just outside the forest her sister had visited earlier. Addison was in no shape to go anywhere, but she'd found something and Arielle meant to find out what.

Even if the police hadn't confiscated the rental in order to find any evidence left behind, Arielle wouldn't have been allowed to drive it. And she wouldn't have wanted to.

She convinced the hotel manager to lend her his car and she drove. She gave the police a wide berth as they investigated the scene. Unfortunately in order to conduct her own investigation she needed to be in the same basic area. The men Addison had found had been attacked for a reason. If Addison thought it was related to the so-called witch's fever, then someone needed to find out what was out there.

She was deep in the woods when she came across a rundown cabin. She stopped and looked at it for several seconds. She might have continued on, but that was when she noticed a little girl looking out the broken window facing her. "Odd," she mumbled to herself as she made her way toward the building.

She had no way of predicting what would happen next. One moment she was heading toward the small cabin, the next she was flying backward into a tree. As she lost consciousness she heard someone ask, "What just happened?"

* * *

The smell of a small stream caught and tugged at David Warren's nostrils. A small smile tugged at his lips even as reality crashed back in on him. This time was longer, much longer than the last two times. It seemed only a matter of a couple of weeks since the attack on Sam and him and yet . . . One moment he had been fighting for his life and the next he had felt his feet wobble beneath him as if the ground had suddenly grown uneven. Sam has been on the ground a few feet away and declared that nothing looked like it had a moment before. They had spent the next day exploring the land around them. When Sam had spotted the cabin Dave had thought it would be a place to rest. Even when Sam had described it as run down, he thought so. Anything to get out of the cold.

Of course nothing had gone as they had planned. When did it ever anymore? They had headed toward the cabin and been knocked away quite soundly. Sam had been knocked unconscious, but Dave had only been knocked senseless for a moment. He'd smelled her before anything else and recognized her. She'd explained that she had decided that for them death was not good enough. She didn't like rejection. Dave had not understood. Sam had though. When he'd woken up Elisa had explained in great detail how much rejecting her had cost Sam. Anne and Charlotte were long dead. Dave hadn't wanted to believe her, but Sam said he would have if he had seen the look in her eyes.

She'd taken her knife to Sam and started popping the buttons on his shirt. Dave could hear them and by his brother's complete lack of struggling he knew his brother was debating the benefits of sitting up and forcing Elisa's knife into his chest. To Dave's mind there were no such benefits, but he knew his brother. Sam was devastated by the loss of Charlotte. He would not react well.

It was odd. Even though he was distraught over the loss of his own wife, Dave could not contemplate death as an option to that grief.

Elisa had started scratching something into Sam's chest and Dave had turned frantic. He could hear his brother's screams and he could hear Elisa's taunts. She tended to ignore him, but she seemed obsessed with his brother.

Having grown up with no magical powers Dave had learned the one thing he could do magically. He had learned spells. And so he had tried his best to ignore the sound of his brother's screams and he had composed a spell. When he had begun casting it, he could hear the silence almost as loud as the screams had been.

Elisa had underestimated him. She would never do that, again.

That had been the first time. It had last two days and then once more the wobbling and the knowledge that far too much time had passed. They learned from Elisa's taunts that the year was now 1897, two hundred and twenty-seven years later than it had been only three days before. Neither of them knew what Elisa had done to them, but they did a better job of avoiding her over the next three days. On the second occasion that she had caught them it had been to taunt them with what they couldn't do. She had informed them that she would win every time and that even the powerful witches Sam's daughter predicted would not be enough to stop this, if they ever even managed to exist. Both brothers had been intrigued by these words, but as soon as she realized it she had changed the subject. Dave hadn't told his brother, but Elisa's words made him think of an old story their mom had told him and Caroline before she had been murdered.

And then time had passed again. Elisa was no longer there, but they both knew she would show soon. Finding a new place to hide had been an interesting trick and Sam wondered aloud why they bothered. Elisa would find them and she would taunt them, torture them, and then time would jump, again, and they would find themselves once more in situation where they were hiding. Hundreds of years had passed. They weren't even sure how many. Clearly whatever was going on, it hadn't been stopped.

And then three things had changed. Given more time, they had explored more and learned that they couldn't even leave the forest. This had lead them back in and they had once more found that cabin. They didn't dare try going near it, again, but another man had. He'd set off the alarms Elisa had set, whatever those alarms were, and Elisa had killed him. She wanted to keep Dave and Sam alive, but this man was unimportant to her. The third thing was Sam had seen a little girl in the window of the cabin. As Sam described her to Dave a woman had joined the girl at the window and Sam had exclaimed in utter shock. Their grandfather had commission a painting done of their parents for their wedding and since Sam had no memories of either of them Sam had been obsessed with that painting for years. According to him, the woman was their mother.

Dave wasn't sure how that could be and he wished he had his eyesight back. And then it was there. For a moment, he could see everything around him. Despite not having seen anything since he was a small boy he knew this was different. The colors were skewed and he was pretty sure he could see heat, but for that moment he could see and he looked straight into the cabin window and saw the faces of his mother and little sister staring back at him.

Then, it was gone and Dave had no idea why it had happened or how to make it happen, again.

He still wasn't even sure what year it was.

That had been hours earlier. Now, Sam had found a young girl who had triggered the alarms. She was unconscious and there wasn't time to revive her. Elisa had killed one man for just being there. A second set of screams an hour or so before had convinced the brothers that someone else had been attacked, but they never found a body, so they could only hope the second person had survived.

Dave carried the young girl while Sam led the way.

"Ye aren't fooling anyone," Sam said in a low voice.

"What?"

"I can hear you," Sam informed him.

Dave furrowed his brow as he frowned. "I hadn't said anything."

"I heard you," Sam protested, coming to a stop.

Dave almost bumped into him. If he hadn't noticed the lack of crunching leaves and branches, he probably would have.

"Ye said you thought Elisa's other victim might be alive," Sam insisted. "I heard you."

"I said nothing of the sort," Dave informed him._ I thought it._

"Ye did not," Sam protested. "I heard you. Ye said it."

Dave's eyes widened. He might not be seeing anything right now, but he was stunned. "I _thought_ it, Sam. I thought it."

"That's ridiculous," Sam protested. "I couldn't have heard you if ye had thought it."

_And yet I did think it,_ Dave protested mentally, testing his theory,_ just like I am right now._

Sam didn't respond and Dave sighed. He knew he was right, so why didn't . . .

"Ye didn't move your lips," Sam informed him stunned. "Are you saying I actually did read your mind?"

"That or I sent them to you," Dave commented.

"But you don't think so," Sam decided. "I think we are far enough away to be safe," Sam decided.

Dave's eyes widened as he once more saw his brother with the off color images. He looked down at the girl, she was probably a few years younger than Sam's wife, Charlotte, had been the last time Sam had seen her. Her clothing was decidedly odd, for she wore britches, but they were unlike any britches he had ever seen.

And considering there were little flowers and butterflies around the bottoms of the legs of her britches he could not imagine a man ever wearing them. He looked up and found his brother looking at him.

Sam's eyes grew very wide as he seemed to realize what he was seeing. "Dave, can you see me?" It was something Sam had never once thought of. For all his thirty-three years he had never known Dave to be able to see anything and now his older brother was looking at him with sight in his eyes. It wasn't normal sight, but it was sight all the same and Sam could tell that his brother's eyes were focused on him.

They heard a moan and both brothers looked down at the girl they'd found.

Sam sighed. "Later, I suppose." He walked away and started looking around.

Dave nodded. He noticed some blood seeping out of a wound on her forehead. He ripped a piece of cloth off his shirt sleeve and started wiping away the blood. Her eyes blinked open and once more Dave saw nothing. If only he could stay focused.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He jerked his hand away, startled despite having seen her eyes open just before his went blank, again. "Sam, she's awake," he called out in a loud whisper.

"Shh," was Sam's only response.

Dave grimaced. Sam must have heard something. And then he heard something, too.

"Samuel Warren, did you set off the alarm?" Elisa asked. When Sam didn't reply, she tried something else. "I see you, Samuel. What I don't see is your brother."

And she couldn't be allowed to see him. Dave wasn't sure what she would do with him, but it was clear what she would do with the girl he was protecting. He shivered and shrank back against the bushes protecting him from view.

"I know he's around here somewhere," Elisa added.

Dave heard the sound of leaves moving in the direction Sam had been when he'd last seen him. He also heard the sound of footsteps as Elisa headed toward Sam.

"Do you have an active power?" he asked the girl in a desperate whisper. If she did maybe she could help his brother. Fighting against Elisa and her blade was tricky with perfect vision. Without vision was not in the least smart. When he didn't heat a response he whispered, again. "Well?"

There was no audible response, but he thought he heard the sound of her head moving. There was a slight gasp followed by, "You're . . ."

". . . Blind," he finished in a very soft whisper. "Do you?"

"No," she whispered. "At least I don't think so."

He sighed. So much for that option. At least she proved he was right and she did know about magic and from the sound of her response, she probably was a witch, like he had suspected.

"David, you never leave your brother's side," she taunted as they heard the sound of her yanking Sam out of the hiding space. "Where are you hiding? And why? I won't hurt you . . . much."

"Dave, don't listen to her," Sam yelled as loud as he could.

Dave had the idea his brother was trying to throw Elisa off, to make her think Dave was farther away than he was. In effect, his little brother was telling him to stay hidden in stronger language than his words ever did.

"She means to . . ." Sam started and then he screamed.

Dave winced. He knew what that sound meant.

"David, come out, come out where ever you are," Elisa's taunting voice sounded like it was walking away from them.

"She doesn't know you're here," he whispered. "She'll keep looking for me. You have to go."

"I can't leave you here," she whispered back. "We'll get your brother and we'll go."

"Sam and I can't leave the forest," he informed her sadly. "We can never leave this forest." When they had tried several days earlier, they had been shocked. Before that point it had been all they could do to just avoid Elisa. They hadn't tried to leave, or at least they hadn't gotten to the edges of the forest. And now trying to leave had proven pointless. They couldn't do it.

"Do you know what's going on out there?" the girl asked him in an annoyed whisper. "Do you know how many thousands are dead, how many millions are less than a week from death? And it's centered here, in Duxbury."

Dave stifled a moan as he heard more screams coming from his little brother. He had to get away from here. He had to get Sam away from here. He couldn't let her keep doing this.

"I know you're near, David," Elisa announced with a chuckle, "so until you decide to show your face, I'm going to carve my name on your brother's chest and he's going to bleed and he's going to be in pain and there's nothing you can do to stop me unless you come out."

Dave gulped. _Sam, if you can hear me, I'm going to attack her. I can't let her keep at this._ He had no doubt his brother wanted to object, but even if his brother could, Sam would know better than to answer.

Dave tried to focus on seeing, hoping to get the same results, but nothing happened. Something had to be allowing him to see. It wasn't just his imagination.

Sam's screams came less frequently, as if Sam was trying harder to keep Dave from hearing them. Dave hoped there wasn't some other explanation, such as his brother was losing consciousness. He had to help his brother.

And then he could see, again. It was the same odd vision as before, but it was enough. "Stay quiet, but move if you can," he whispered to the girl before he moved out of the bushes and into Elisa's view. "Elisa?" he asked. He could see her for the moment, but he didn't want to let on. "I'm here now. Let my brother go." He tried not to grimace at the sight of blood on his brother and he tried not to show relief that his brother was still breathing and that as far as he could see all the wounds were shallow.

Elisa looked up at him with boredom. "Took you long enough. For a minute there, I thought you were going to let your little brother boss you around."

Dave gulped. "I do what I think is best."

She smiled wickedly, sure her smile was lost on him, but not caring. "Listening to me is always best."

"I'm here for my brother, and only for my brother," Dave informed him.

Elisa glared at him for a second, but when he didn't instantly back away she scowled and declared in a huff, "Sometimes I wish you hadn't gone blind."

"Sometimes I'm glad I did," he replied. "I'm here. Are you going to leave now?"

"What if I don't want to?" she asked seductively.

"Ye hurt my brother," was his simple reply. "Ye framed my pa. Ye murdered my ma. Not a chance, ever."

"Your loss," she huffed and stomped away.

"Not likely," he mumbled as he dropped to his knees and covered the distance between him and his brother until he reached his brother's side. "Sam?"

"I'm here," Sam replied in a pained voice. "She wasn't aiming to kill. I'll be fine. Tisn't that bad."

"Ye art covered in blood," Dave protested.

"Shallow," Sam argued, his voice strained. "Ye can see me."

"Ye can heareth my thoughts," Dave returned. "I don't knoweth what is going on, but let us get away from here. I'd rather not be where Elisa can easily find us."

"Who is she?" the girl asked as she came out from where she had been hiding.

"Someone very evil," Dave informed her.

She got down on her knees and found herself thankful that she didn't feel squeamish around blood like her sister did. She started looking at Sam's wounds.

He pulled his shirt down and pushed himself up. "I shall be fine. Elisa wished only to see us squirm and hear us scream. She doesn't want us dead. T'would ruin her fun." He ignored his brother's offered hand and stood. "Let us find somewhere else to talk."

The girl followed them in silence giving Dave a chance to consider her and what little he'd learned of her. He knew she was a witch who hadn't come into her powers. Or at least she hadn't found his question about powers an odd question. "What's your name?"

She stopped and looked at him. "My name is Arielle Rooks. What is your name?"

"I'm Dave Warren," he informed her. "This is my younger brother, Sam."

"Warren?" she looked at them in surprise. "Are you related to Melinda Warren?"

Both brother's froze. Sam's eyes were wide as he stared at her. Elisa had once taunted them about Anne and Charlotte and how their beloved wives were long dead and how Anne had even remarried. Elisa had thrilled in telling them that, but what had thrilled her the most was telling Sam about the baby girl Charlotte had given birth to, the daughter who had been born, lived, and died without him ever having met her.

Arielle looked at them confused. "Was it something I said?"

"I think it would be best to get away from here before Elisa returns," Sam suggested, wanting to get off the topic of the daughter he'd never known.

It was affective. "Why is she like that?"

Dave sighed. "I don't know. She's been like that as long as I've known her."

Glancing at his brother, Sam added, "Dave used to telleth me that he thought Elisa was behind our ma's death and . . ."

"And our sister's body was found with ma's," Dave finished when Sam couldn't. Despite the fact that Caroline had been dead before Sam was born, Dave found it easier to talk about what happened to her body then Sam did. "Caroline was buried at sea, but she was found with Ma. And Elizabeth said she didn't look long dead either."

"Elizabeth?" Arielle asked curiously.

Dave nodded. "My sister-in-law," he explained. "She found their bodies," he paused as a pained expression crossed his face. "I think she was twelve at the time."

"How old were you?" Arielle asked, suddenly needing to know. The way he talked he made twelve sound old.

"Seven."

"Seven!" Arielle gasped. "You poor thing!"

"Life's hard," Dave reminded her. He'd learned to take the life he'd been given. It had been harder since getting stuck here, but to him that had only been a little under two weeks. "Perhaps if we'd stayed over in England it would have gone easier, but I can't regret it."

Arielle looked at him surprised. "Can you not?"

Dave shook his head. "No, I'd never be who I am and I'd never have met Anne if we hadn't. Being blind, losing my parents and my little sister, I've survived that. It made me who I am." Even as he said that, it struck him that he still was able to see in the strange colors.

"Dave makes it sound easy," Sam commented, "but verily he's right. I don't regret it either. My parents might feel differently."

"When this is over, perhaps we can summon them," Arielle suggested, "let them tell you if they have regrets."

"Ma's in the cabin," Sam informed her, glancing in the direction they had come from. "Her ghost haunts it and we can't reach her or little Caroline." He saw nothing unusual about calling his older sister little, especially since she had died before he was even born. He sat down on the ground and stifled a moan as the pain from the cuts on his body made themselves known. "Why did thou mentionist my daughter earlier?"

"Your daughter?" Arielle asked in surprised.

Sam nodded. "When we told you our names you asked about my daughter, Melinda."

Arielle's eyes widened. "Melinda Warren was your daughter?" she asked incredulously.

"I believe so," he agreed. "The last time I saw my wife, she was expecting our firstborn."

"You never met your child?"

Sam shook his head. "No."

"Then, how can you be sure Melinda Warren was your daughter?" Arielle wanted to know.

"I can't," Sam conceded. "You can assure me though. Elisa told me Charlotte gave birth to a girl named Melinda."

"I do not know a lot," Arielle admitted. "My father only told me about her as much as was needed to explain who the Charmed Ones are."

"The Charmed Ones?" Dave questioned.

Arielle smiled. She liked this story. "In 1693, shortly before her death, Melinda Warren predicted that each generation of witches in her family would grow in strength culminating in three sisters who would be known as the Charmed Ones."

Dave chuckled and winked at his brother. "It's always about you, isn't it, little brother?"

"It sounds like our family, too," Sam added. "Three sisters, of course. It started with three sisters and it ends with three sisters. My daughter's descendants."

"Ends?" Arielle frowned at them. "You are mistaken. Their line continues on. Their daughters and sons carry on their magical heritage."

The two brothers turned to each other and chuckled. "Yes, perhaps," Dave smiled at her. "It's old family lore. There is no time for it now. Tell us more about these Charmed Ones. Perhaps they have enough power to take on Elisa and her family. Despite their numbers, the Richmonds are still only a normal family of warlocks. Sam and I appear to have suddenly come into powers, so clearly at least one prediction from our family has come true. And if I remember the stories correctly, there is a lot of power in our family right now."

"I do not understand," Arielle commented, looking at them confused.

"Tis all right," he assured her. "Twas so long ago, I don't think there are any records still around, but a very long time ago, one of our ancestors cast a rather unusual spell in order to make sure a demon was defeated eventually. Apparently that time has come."

Sam chuckled softly. "It's only been about four thousand years. Tis not as if this happened at the beginning of time."

"We need to find a way to get these Charmed Ones here," Dave told Arielle. "Do you know anyone who can blink?"

Arielle's eyes widened. "That is a warlock power! Of course I do not."

Dave frowned. "What are you talking about? It was Ma's sister, Hannah's, power. I have not seen Aunt Hannah since I was six, but I'm very certain she wasn't a warlock."

"I have never heard of such a thing," Arielle admitted, surprised, "a witch who could blink. Who would have thought?"

"It's a rare power, I admit," Dave commented, "but I've never heard of a warlock who had it, so something must have changed if you say the opposite."

"Perhaps that is true," she admitted. "Either way I do not know anyone who can blink, but I do have a cell phone."

The two brothers frowned, first at each other and then at her. It was Sam who asked, "What's a cell phone?"

"Oh!" Arielle exclaimed. "You . . . of course you do not. It is a special device that allows two people to talk to each other from great distances. My sister works for one of the Charmed Ones, so hopefully I can use that to get someone to give me a phone number for them." She cast them each a smile. "We are going to figure this out yet."

"It sounds magical," Sam commented.

Arielle smiled. "No, it is not magical, but if it helps to think of it that way, then you go right ahead.

* * *

I am going to offer no promises, but if I can find the time to get on here, I will be uploading the next two chapters soon. Both are complete and can be uploaded . . . just not this late at night. The next chapter is called "No News is Bad News". It will do me good to reread these so I can figure out how to proceed. I have pieces in various places but the actual outline was lost. Hopefully, more soon.


	19. No News Is Bad News

Okay, no reviewers, but I wanted to give you another chapter quickly since it's been so long between chapters. I hope everyone enjoyed the last chapter and learning about Charmed: Heritage's version of the Warren Family history. More on that at a later date.

Here's the next chapter. It welcomes the return of a character from all the way back in season two of Charmed and another hint on the road to finding out Phoebe and Coop's fate. I promise I am not trying to draw that out. It just needs to happen at a certain place and there hasn't been a chance to go to that place yet. I am actually working on that story, so hopefully there will be lots of goodies for you soon.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen – No News is Bad News

9:42 AM

Cilly walked away from the various cupids she had talked. To say she was annoyed at the entire community of cupids was an understatement. At least some of them had been apologetic, which had made her see those few in a more favorable light. It hadn't however helped her find a cure.

She was about fifty feet from the exit and ability to leave and return to the manor when a hand clasped on her shoulder. She turned around and found the cupid she and Chris had met when they had gone to the cupid resort a couple of weeks before. "Are you able to help me? Or do you have more cryptic comments?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you with the epidemic," he told her, causing Cilly to scowl.

"Then why did you stop me?" she asked as she started back toward the exit.

He grabbed her arm gently and pulled her to a stop. "Hear me out."

She sighed. "People are dying down there. Don't you care?"

He nodded. "I care, but I've never seen anything like that before and I hope I never do, again."

"Then, why stop me?"

The cupid handed her a box. "I don't know enough to help you find then, but after you and your cousin left I tried to see what I could find. I found someone who was able to tell me that if you find them in time you will need this."

"In time?" Cilly asked with a gulp. "What do you mean in time?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I got the impression she didn't care one way or the other and she just wants to give you enough to mess with your head."

Cilly gulped, again. "Do you trust her?"

The cupid shook his head. "No, but if there's even the slightest chance that this will help, I want you to have it."

Cilly finally accepted the small boy and gave him a wobbly smile. "Thanks. I've got to get going. Hopefully my family is having more luck. Then I am. This is killing me too many people." She let out a shaky breath. "Yesterday a friend of mine died along with both of her parents, her sister, and two of her three brothers. How does a twelve-year-old boy deal with the loss of his entire family?"

"With people like you who care to see him through," the cupid informed her. "If I learned anything useful, either about what is going on or about your parents, I will get word to you. Be careful."

She nodded. "I will. Thank you." This time when she tried to leave, he let her. As soon as she reached the entrance she disappeared with the little box in pink and white hearts.

* * *

9:43 AM

Seth froze in place and, moving again, pinned himself up against the wall to let someone pass by. For once it sounded like someone actually knew something about the disease and he wasn't going to leave without finding and if they had useful info.

"They're calling it witch's fever," one voice claimed, annoyance in his voice. "Mother is furious. The idea that witches are getting credit for this has her throwing humans around, literally."

There was a chuckle as the other being, a raspy voice, scaled skinned demon with glowing red eyes replied. "She's being careless?"

"Have you ever known my mother to be careless?" the first voice asked.

That brought a full bodied laugh from the demon. "No, William, I don't believe I ever have. How is the rest of your family handling it?"

William shrugged. "I don't think most of them care. Elisa probably doesn't even know. She's too busy enjoying the torment she pours out on the Warrens."

"It's amazing how single minded that sister of yours can be," the demon commented.

"It's amazing how single minded all my sister can be," William retorted. "When mother finally found a family of witches with which to perform the ritual that would turn us into warlocks, it was because Elisa was already causing trouble for the family after Patrick Warren rejected her. And then of course there had to be some sort of ridiculous matriarchal power linage which kept her sons from having the magic passed on to them. Do you have any idea how rare that is?"

The demon opened his mouth to answer and then shut it, clearly thinking better of whatever he was about to say.  
William didn't even notice. "It worked out all right, because Mother learned that there had been a daughter and she sent Marie to fetch her body. It had been buried at Sea and only Marie could possibly manage to get it. She moves fast enough that she can reach the bottom of the ocean without running out of breath. Not to mention she could search miles of ocean floor in a relatively short time and find the girl's body."

The demon looked like he was almost afraid to ask. "And your other sister?"

"Well, I suppose Louise might have noticed this name thing," William conceded. "It was her baby after all. While Marie was busy finding Caroline Warren's body and Elisa was busy framing Patrick Warren for theft, Louise had time to think and she decided to expand on mother's idea. She came up with the additions to mother's spell that would affect the nonmagicals among us and she came up with the best way to keep someone from casting a counter spell." William sighed. "Unfortunately we discovered much too late that there already was a family of witches in our village and while they didn't have what it took to counter the spell they did manage to stop its progress for one hundred and thirty years and when the time was up they were ready. Hardly anyone died. The third time was just as disappointing and George got fed up. He decided to cast a spell that erased all written info on this." William grinned. "It is working wonderfully. Nine days and thousands are dead. Millions are infected. Even if they manage to figure out the spell to stop its progress, they'll wipe out about a tenth of the world's population in the process. Either way we've won."

Seth gulped. Surely he didn't mean everyone who was sick was going to die no matter what. There had to be a way to save them. He couldn't lose Peter or Uncle Leo.

"Oliver's having fun with it," William commented.

The demon looked at him questioningly. "Oh? The boy isn't exposing magic is he?"

"Hardly, though he may be moving a bit fast for the media not to be a little curious. I suspect he's got his sister working with him, but that's not all that important. Jessica will do just about anything Oliver tells her to and I doubt he's letting her kill anyone, since he enjoys smothering the lives out of them so much." There was a sigh and then the sound of footsteps.

Seth moved away from the wall and headed down the hall, hoping he didn't seem suspicious. When he rounded a corner he shimmered away.

* * *

9:47 AM

"How can we know nothing after all this time has passed?" Alanna bemoaned as she threw another failed attempt at writing a spell across the room. "Shouldn't we at least know the spell they used the last two times?"

"We know who started it," Jani reminded her. "That's something, right?"

Her sister just glared back at her.

"It's a start," Jani insisted. "We didn't even have that before."

"But how can that help us?" Alanna demanded to know. "We can't research them."

Jani wrinkled her nose and sighed. "That I don't know."

Alanna growled and threw her pencil across the room. "We don't have time for this! People are dying while we discuss this."

Neither sister heard the attic door open and neither of them saw their mom enter. They were too focused.

Jani walked over to where her sister's pencil fell and reached down. She picked it up and walked over to her sister.

"So we keep looking. We keep trying. Right now your job is to write spells and hopefully find the one we need."

"What about you?" Alanna asked, focusing her attention on her sister. "I haven't seen you do much of anything. How are you contributing to this? How do you ever contribute to magical matters?"

Paige considered if she should interfere.

Jani sighed and sank down on the couch. "I'm still trying to figure that out. I can't spell without a spell checker and I certainly can't rhyme most of the time. That makes it kind of tough to write a spell. And I may be a better chef then Wyatt, but really, how hard is that? Everyone knows he can't cook."

"Everyone except Hank," Alanna managed a giggle. "Hank keeps insisting that Wyatt can cook."

"Speaking of our little brother," Jani added, "I don't think I could stay focused as much as he does. He spends hours pouring over the book of shadows Mom copied. And now we learn that he can't even cast spells, but he studies them and learns them." She sighed. "All I can do is freeze things in ice."

"You did find that info on the internet though," Alanna commented, remembering why Ladybug wasn't there. "That might help. And you are always finding those obscure links online." She shrugged. "It's the digital age. Maybe that's what we need you doing."

Paige smiled as she listened to her daughters talk. She was about to announce her presence when the air in the center of the room shimmered. Paige tensed, but reasoning that most demons weren't that stupid, she waited.

As Seth fully appeared in the center of the room Paige relaxed. There had to be some way to know ahead of time that it was Seth so they didn't let their guard down around actually dangerous demons, but she'd worry about that later. "How's your brother doing, Seth?"

The twins looked up startled, clearly not expecting to see anyone else there. Jani grinned at the sight of Seth. "It's nice to see you, Seth."

He shook his head and ignored her. "Peter's no better or worse than anyone else at his stage in this awful curse, which means bad. And if that's not bad enough we have to worry about a duo of warlocks bent on killing everyone even faster."

"You know about that?" Paige asked surprised. "Two warlocks?" Alanna asked, equally surprised. "Where'd you hear that? We didn't even know warlocks were involved."

"Their uncle was chatting with a demon in the underworld," Seth scowled. "How did you know about this and not do something about it?"

"Because we don't know anything," Alanna shot back. "All we know is that people in New England are being smothered to death and that whoever is responsible is moving quickly between hospitals, but we don't know when they might strike next or where."

Seth's scowl deepened. He took a step back and sighed. "We're running in circles aren't we?"

Alanna grimaced. "Seems a little like that doesn't it, but we are making progress." She sighed.

"Did you learn anything else?" Paige asked as she approached them.

Before he could answer pink hearts whirled around and Cilly appeared with her little box in her hands. Without a word, she closed the space between her and one of the shelves and put the box there. As much as she wanted desperately to find and help her parents, she knew now wasn't the time to bring up what the cupid had given her. She turned around to find everyone looking at her.

"What's with the box?" Alanna asked as she started toward Cilly.

Cilly shook her head. "That's for later, after this is all over." When no one seemed to take the hint, she signed. "It has to do with my parents."

"If we could find Phoebe . . ." Paige started.

"But we can't," Cilly interrupted. "This won't help find them. It's something else. Later. Okay?"

Paige nodded. "Okay. Back to the Richmonds and this disease."

"Curse," Seth countered.

"Curse?" Paige looked at him surprised. "How do you figure?"

"There's no such thing as a magical immunity," Seth argued. "Not from illness there isn't. This isn't an illness. It's a curse, because a curse is set to affect a specific person or group of persons. Some curses are spell and counter spell. Some are potions or blood oaths. Most likely there is a spell that caused this. I just don't know how it is that this chooses it's victims."

"It's in the water," Alanna informed him. "Or at least WF thinks so."

"WF?" Seth looked at her confused.

"WitchFever," Jani explained. "He or she is a user on twitter that is claiming this is being spread by the water."

"They are suggesting using bottled water or avoiding water all together until this is done," Alanna added.

"Which is probably why Dad's not sick," Jani interrupted. "His boss has the whole department on a water bottle diet."

Seth took this in and thought back. "Dad's been living out of a vending machine since Peter got sick."

Paige frowned as she processed that. When it hit her what he had said, her eyes widened. "Which is why the families of the sick aren't getting sick."

"It makes sense," Seth agreed.

"About two weeks ago, Henry's boss put the entire department on a water bottle diet," Paige informed him. "It was pretty odd, but it was supposed to be a limited time thing, a couple of weeks, maybe a month. The memo about it even said to use bottled water for coffee. That's why the medical staff's getting sick. They're like Wyatt. They're not sleeping. They're drinking coffee. Loads and loads of tap water coffee. This is sounding more and more like WF is right."

"This whole thing is petty," Seth announced to no one in particular.

Paige looked at him, surprised at the pronouncement. "What do you mean?"

"They didn't spell it all out," Seth admitted, "but I got the idea that jealousy or revenge was involved. The warlock, William, said something about his sister framing someone." Seth froze. "Warren! Didn't Aunt Phoebe tell me that Melinda Warren was the founder of your line?"

Cilly nodded. "I think you listened better than some of my cousins."

Seth let a smile slip onto his lips for just a moment.

"Why do you ask though?" she asked.

The smile dropped. "William said something about his sister, Elisa, being framed someone named Patrick Warren. Do you think he could be related?"

"I came across his name in the Book of Shadows once," a voice informed them from the doorway.

Five sets of eyes turned toward the door. Seeing her son standing there rubbing his eyes Paige frowned, Hank's word's not registering yet. "You're supposed to be asleep."

"I'm awake now," Hank protested. "What is this about Patrick Warren?"

"Who is he?" Seth wanted to know.

Hank squeezed his eyes shut trying to think. "My mother likes to tell me stories about my papa. She says that he was a brave man who fell to an evil warlock with powers far surpassing his own. He died fighting at his brother, David's, side. According to Ma my papa and Uncle David blamed that same warlock for the death of their parents, Patrick and Rebecca Warren, but where never able to prove that," Hank paused and looked around him. "It goes on for a few paragraphs, talking about her grandparents move to America with their two children, the death of her aunt on the boat there, the birth of Melinda's father shortly after, and the death of her grandparents. I think there was something about her uncle being blinded in an accident around the same time."

"How do you remember all that?" Jani asked amused.

Hank shrugged. "I read it late last night and since it was one of the older entries in there it caught my attention. It wasn't much help through."

"Do you have the Book of Shadows memorized?" Alanna demanded of her little brother.

Hank shook his head. "I just remembered that passage because I read it last night. I couldn't quote the rest of it." He snorted. "Actually I'm surprised I remembered as much as I did."

"Thank you for the info, Hank," Paige interrupted," but you are going back to bed."

Hank shook his head. "Please, Mom. I've rested enough. I want to help."

"Yeah, Mom," Alanna added her plea. "Hank can orb, so maybe he can find something about the spell."

"But everything written seems to be gone," Jani protested. "And Ladybug's already looking into the blog I found."

Paige was silent as she considered the situation. After almost a minute of silence, she nodded. "Hank, go find your dad. "He planned to talk to his boss, because of the water bottle diet he had the department on. Your dad thought he might know something. I'm worried he might be dangerous."

Hank nodded. "Can Lanna or Jani come with me? I don't exactly have offensive powers."

"Take Lanna," Paige directed him. "I need Jani here on the computer."

Alanna hopped up and wrapped her arms around her brother. "Let's go."

As her oldest and youngest disappeared in blue and white orbs Paige turned to Jani. "I need you to locate the twitter account and get them to tell you what they know."

Jani sat down in front of her computer and got to work.

Paige turned to look at Seth and Cilly. "Cilly, I want you to rest. If we can contact this WitchFever person I'm going to need you to figure out if we can trust him or her."

Cilly nodded. "You'll wake me?"

"When it's time," Paige agreed. "Seth, I'm going to fill you in on what we know and I want you to go let Piper and Prue know. If we find some plan of action it would be easier if they already knew what was going on."

"I can do that," Seth assured her.

Cilly smiled and headed downstairs.

"I need you to know that what Ladybug is looking for is the spell used last time," Paige told him.

"Last time?" he looked at her questioning. "So there's a cure. That's good." When Paige just sighed he frowned. "It is good, right?"

Paige sighed, again, and shook her head. "Only for those who haven't been affected yet."

Seth frown deepened. "What do you mean?"

"Mom!" Jani interrupted.

Paige and Seth looked at her startled. "Is something wrong?" Paige asked worried.

Jani shook her head. Then, she nodded. Then, she sort of rolled her head around. Finally, with a slight laugh, she shrugged. "WF wants to talk to you."

"Specifically me?" Paige asked startled.

Jani's lips wiggled. "Well, no, but specifically a Charmed One . . . I think." She pointed to a spot on the screen.

Paige's eyes widened. She closed the space between her and her daughter. She knelt down next to her and looked down at where her daughter's finger touched the screen. "They said that?"

On the screen at her daughter's finger it read, "(at)JaniPaM Can you get a CO to take a call from my sister? She has some info that you need. Please follow me and then contact me. Urgent."

A lead was a lead. Paige stared at the screen for a second longer and then up at her daughter's questioning face. "Give them my cell number."

* * *

Jani's twitter address had to be modified to fit within the rules of this site. A.k.a. They don't like email address, so twitter "at"s fall into the same category. At the time of writing this, there is no twitter account named WitchFever (Arielle's temporary account to get the word out fast about the water) nor is there one named JaniPaM (Janice Patricia Mitchell). I was careful to make sure of that, at least with Jani's before I wrote this. The other I kind of needed.

Okay, the next chapter is the last one that I have completed. It's called "To the Death". Things aren't going so well for one of Paige's sisters. To find out what happens I either want some reviews (not sure how many, but multiple), one hundred views, or I will wait a minimum of Saturday before I post the chapter. Considering you guys have waited this long, I guess that's not long to ask you to wait, but I'm hoping I can do some writing on Friday.


	20. To the Death

First, a thank you to my reviewers:

Vinny and Nix - Yep. That's true.

Gwen2012 - I'm glad you love the history I am building for the Warrens. It's interesting to play with that. The brothers will for better or worse be dealt with by the end of the episode as will those infected, of course. Yep. That is ambitious, but I am deturmined to write all of it and share it with people.

Sorry about posting this late. I had some major internet issues yesterday and it was difficult to get anything done.

This next chapter was interesting to work because I am dealing with a witch who despite all her time using magic to fight evil must contend with someone else' powers and it's not exactly easy. As the title suggest, not everyone is going to survive.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen – To the Death

9:50 AM (12:50 PM in Boston)

The sound of a tearful cry caught Prue's attention as a nearby door slammed open and a woman ran out screaming for a doctor. Certain of what must have happened, Prue quickened her steps and her return to Andy. Much as she hated it, she was slowly accepting that she was going to lose him, again, that many in stage five didn't even make it this long. Another four hours and it would be twelve hours since Andy went into a coma and entered stage five. No one had made it past twelve hours in stage five.

Prue saw a tall blond man exit a room in front of her with a smile on his face. He flicked something off his face that looked like blood and pursed his lips as if he was whistling. Prue frowned, wondering why no one else noticed him. He was so out of place with the happy-go-lucky look on his face surely someone would. She watched him enter a new room and closed the door behind him.

Confusion and concern pulled her to open the door to the room he'd just left and look inside, trying to learn why he was so happy. What she found horrified her.

Two beds graced the room and on each was a body. Pillows used to suffocate the two patients were still covering their faces. Thoughts raced through Prue's mind as she slapped the nurse's button on the wall and ran down the hall. She pushed open the door she'd seen the blond man enter and took in the scene in front of her. One patient already had a pillow covering her face.

The blond man looked up at the sound of the door opening. "Well, hello," he greeted her pleasantly, letting go of the second pillow covering the second patent's face. "A lovely day out there isn't it," he commented.

Prue ignored him and tried to send the pillow flying with a flick of her eyes. When nothing happened, she was forced to remember the strange switch of powers that had occurred and exhaled in frustration. She closed the door behind her.

"It's rude to ignore a greeting," he commented, still with a pleasant tone in his voice.

"You just killed three people and you're worried about being polite?" Prue asked in disbelief.

His eyes widened. "Leave now," he ordered, a strain in his still pleasant tone.

Prue's eyes narrowed. "No," she replied firmly as she took steps toward him. "_You_ step away from the girl."

His nostrils flare and he started fighting. "Leave. You must leave." When she only stepped closer he began to looks panicked. "Why are you ignoring me? No one ignored me."

"I don't like what you're saying," Prue informed him. "Now, step away from her."

The only warning Prue got of what happened next was the scrape of the door as the door knob turned. Before she could react a clipboard slammed into the back of her head. The forced of it was enough to send Prue careening into the guard.

Prue slammed her head into one of the hospital beds on the way down and fought to keep conscious.

"What's taking so long?" the new corner, a blonde professional looking woman. "I'm getting bored with this place."

"Not all of us are as fast as you are, Jessica," the blond man drawled. "I ran into that woman," he pointed down at Prue who was fighting to stay awake. "She doesn't even seem to notice my powers."

Jessica Michaels-Darcy looked down at Prue with disdain. "She must be a witch, Oliver."

Prue felt the hatred rolling off of Jessica. How did Phoebe manage to avoid the massive headaches her powers must come with?

Oliver Michaels, stepped over to where Prue lay, ignoring his intended victim, the pillow falling to the ground as he bumped into it. He leaned down and spat on her. "Stupid witch. Don't you know we always win?"

Without the use of her normal powers, Prue glanced around through squinted eyes for a weapon. Finding nothing she shot out her arms and shoved Oliver as hard as she could. She hoped he ran into something sharp.

He didn't, but she shoved him hard enough that he rammed into Jessica. They both fell down into a heap on the floor, toppling over two chairs.

Prue scrambled to her feet and glancing around she didn't see anything sharp anywhere. Sure, they were warlocks. Sharp objects wouldn't kill them. Hard blunt objects wouldn't kill them.

They would, however, slow them down and she needed that time to think. Seeing a pair of empty chairs, she heaved one up and slammed it into Jessica as the woman was trying to push Oliver off of her. The semi-heavy chair had the desire result of knocking Jessica hard enough to knock her out.

Oliver shot his leg out and hooked her around the ankle. He pulled back on his foot causing Prue to lose balance.

As Prue fell she dropped the chair and it landed first on her foot causing pain to shoot up her leg and them it contained its fall, landing on Oliver. Prue focused on her foot as Oliver shoved the chair off of him. Amazement that no one was investigating flashed through Prue's mind as she took notice of yelling in the room next to them. She didn't have much time to think about it when Oliver rolled over and onto his feet.

That lasted only a very short time as his knee appeared to buckle. Apparently some part of him had noticed the chair landing on him.

Still he was a warlock and warlocks tended to be very good at shaking off pain. She remembered the very first warlock she had fought with her sisters. Jeremy had been a shock to them. He'd been dating Piper since Grams had died and none of them had suspected that he was evil.

And then there was Nicholas. Jeremy had required the power of three to stop. Or at least they had used it after other things had failed. Nicholas had been harder. He'd coerced their mom into blessing a ring to protect him from their powers and his own powers had been very dangerous, almost deadly. Without a trip to the past and a spell from Grams and Mom they might not have made it.

The three of them had cast the spell together and he'd been vanquished. And when a demon had brought Jeremy back, they had conference called to get rid of him. Nicholas had been easier the second time around. He'd gotten his pound of flesh by sending her to the hospital, but she'd managed to cast the spell to vanquish him first and she'd come out the victor.

Over the decades there had been other warlocks, though not many, some requiring the power of three such as the warlock Dusty Milligan, and others who had been dealt with more easily. Usually, she'd had her sisters to help her, but here and now, she had nothing. Oh, her sisters were out there, but she couldn't contact them from here and even if she could, she couldn't use the power of three. If that didn't make things tough enough, she had Phoebe's powers rather than her own.

She didn't know how to use Phoebe's powers.

There was a crash followed by a crackle in the direction of the window. Prue glanced in that direction and barely had time to duck down as glass shards came at her like razor sharp knives.

* * *

_"She can do what?" Prue stared at her sisters in disbelief._

_Piper and Paige looked at each other. Paige shrugged. "I'm not sure how else to say it. Sometimes Phoebe can use her empathy to use the powers of someone around her._

_"That," Prue informed her, recalling her own experience with empathy. "Is not. Empathy. I don't know what it is, but it's not empathy."_

* * *

And yet what she knew as empathy, the sometimes crushing feeling of others' emotions, was definitely there. She was not meant to be an empath, that much was imminently clear to her, but in the almost two weeks since her powers had somehow been switched for Phoebe's, she had learned to not only function, but to block all but the strongest emotions if she concentrated hard enough. And she could fade out most if they were in another room or sufficiently far away. She'd had to learn. It had been a matter of survival with everything going on during the last week.

Prue had little control over whatever part of Phoebe's power allowed her sister to use the powers of others, but before this had started Paige had come over a few times to try and help her figure it out. The only one of Paige's powers that she had managed to use was her ability to call objects to her, probably because it was similar to her own. A grin tugged at her lips. It looked like Oliver had a powers similar to hers as well.

Prue looked at the glass shards on the ground. As she focused on them, they lifted off the floor. She waved her arm and nothing happened. The annoyance took her focus off of them and they crashed to the ground.

Oliver looked at her surprised and then he started chuckling. Prue frowned as Oliver just started laughing harder. "You're a freaking empath?"

Prue ignored him and focused on the glass shards. A moment later she had them floating, again. This time instead of waving her arm she tried a different tactic. She looked at the broken window while keeping focus on the shards hovering over the floor. Then, with quick flicks of her eyes she sent the glass left in the window and the shards on the ground barreling toward Oliver. "Not exactly," she informed him as the glass hit him from two sides. "I'm the witch who's ending you murdering spree."

Pain poured into Oliver as glass cut through his skin on all sides. Pain alone was not enough to kill a warlock. His skin may have been cut. There may have been glass shards sticking out of his body, but warlocks didn't bleed, so it was a rather tidy set of wounds.

Pain was enough to distract and Prue used that to her advantage. In a low voice she began to chant a spell that her sister had come up with years before. "Once a flesh and blood mortal man, undo the magic done, immortality ban. Let this warlock's blood run free and fast. End his life and let him die at long last."

At first nothing happened. Oliver ignored her throughout the spell as he pulled glass shards out of his body. Apparently his ability to move objects did not include objects imbedded in his body. Then he stopped as red liquid began to pour out of his body. The stunned look on his face was quickly followed by pain as, for the first time in almost four hundred years, blood flowed through his body and onto the ground.

Relief washed through Prue as she realized Paige's spell worked. She hadn't known if it would since the spell only worked on warlocks who were not born warlocks.

Oliver crumpled to the ground in front of her. Realizing that he was going to die, he attempted to shove her.

Prue grabbed a hold of the nearest bed to keep from falling. She steadied herself and looked down. With him dying, she needed to focus on the other warlock. Hopefully her spell had worked on her as well.

Before she could focus on her goal she was whipped across the room into the wall. The force with which she hit the wall was enough to knock her unconscious. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was Oliver's bloody body.

* * *

What do you think of Paige's spell? Obviously this references the Witch Hunts version of Paige.

Oliver might be gone, but there's still Jessica to contend with and it's not starting out very well.

Sadly, due to losing the file this was on, I'm not sure what comes next. I have to try and figure it out from my notes and such. I do know it's back to the attic with Paige and company, so that should give you some idea.


	21. Elisa

First a very huge thank you to all my very patient readers and an even bigger thank you to my reviewer:

Lilac - I know it's been a while since even your review, but this chapter just refuses to be finished. At the advice of a friend I chopped it up into three pieces at logical divisions and now I have two completed chapters and one that still refuses to be finished, but you still get to have a brand new chapter that very few have seen before today. Thank you for your condolences. Some times are easier than other times. I can go for days without thinking too hard about Dad and then something will set me off.

Well, everyone, things are about to get dangerous. What Paige thought was a fact finding mission is going to be so much more than that and not everyone will make it out of that forest.

* * *

Chapter Twenty – Elisa

9:58 AM (12:58 PM in Duxbury)

"Is she coming?" Sam wanted to know as he stared at Arielle's cell phone, still a bit suspicious.

"I think so," Arielle informed them. "She said she would."

"Be patient, little brother," Dave cautioned him. "Thou are giving me a pain in my head."

"I think that would be thou's eyes, not me."

"What is wrong with his eyes?" Arielle asked, looking at the two brothers surprised.

"Did thou not hearest us earlier?" Sam asked. "Dave is blind. He lost his vision in an accident when he was a child."

"When _he_ was a child? What about you?"

"I think I was born." Sam looked at his brother. "Was I?"

"Thou weret born on the boat before we arrived," Dave reminded him. "My accident was on land, so yes, thou weret born when I lost my sight."

A few feet from them blue-white orbs began to form into a person and pink and white hearts did the same.

The Warren brothers stared at Cilly with dropped jaws.

"Is she . . ?" Sam stared.

"She's a cupid," Dave said in disbelief.

Arielle nibbled on her lip and tried to keep from giggling.

"Cupid's are real?" Sam looked at his brother, dumbfounded.

"My dad's a cupid," Cilly told them with a smile.

"Thou art jesting with us," Dave shook his head, trying to make sense of it.

"Not at all," she assured them as she focused her attention on them. She started to smile, again, but as she looked at them, her mouth formed an "o". "I'm so sorry."

"What is the matter?" Arielle asked concerned.

Cilly shook her head. "It's nothing." She looked at the two brothers. "I'm an empath and when I looked at you, I was just washed with sadness. You must have been through a lot."

Dave gulped.

"I can't say that there 'tis much of it I recall," Sam admitted. "I was a babe when we lost our parents and not yet born when out sister died."

"Cilly, I know you want to make them feel better, but there's not a lot of time," Paige pointed out.

Cilly nodded. "Sorry. You're right."

"We're here," Paige stated, looking at Arielle. "You thought you could help."

"Our mother 'tis whom you need to talk to," Dave indicated the cabin with his chin. "I don't know how you get to her though. The talismans are magic proof."

Paige and Cilly looked beyond him to the cabin he was indicated somewhere on the other side of a bunch of trees. All they could see was the roof.

"Their mother is Rebecca Warren . . ."

Paige's head jerked as if shot to look at Arielle. "Warren?"

"Warren," Arielle nodded. "Sam is Melinda Warren's father. I believe you know who she is."

Paige stared at the two brothers stunned. "Which of you is Sam?"

Sam offered her a tentative smile. "That 'tis me."

"Oh, my word," Paige stared at him. "You're Melinda's father?"

"So I have been told," Sam sighed. "When Elisa trapped Dave and me here, my Charlotte and I had no children, but both Elisa and young Arielle here have told me that after I was gone my Charlotte gave birth to our daughter."

"My word," Paige repeated. "And Dave? That would be you?"

"It would," Dave agreed. "David Patrick Warren, son of Patrick Warren of the Westmorland Warrens and Rebecca Price of the Yorkshire Price witches." There was pride in his voice as he mentioned the parents he had lost so long ago.

"I believe I could talk to her," Sam said softly.

"How?" Paige asked with interest.

"It seems . . . This time around I seem to have come into my powers finally," Sam looked at them with a smile. "I never thought that would happen."

Paige frowned. "Well, how does that help? What's your power?"

"I read minds," Sam told her with a giddy look. "Or at least I read Dave's. Surely I could read my mother's."

Paige glanced at Cilly.

Cilly nodded.

Paige sighed. She was so tired of leads that lead nowhere. She only hoped this wasn't another such lead. "Lead the way."

They walked through the trees and stopped in front of the cabin.

Rebecca smiled through the window at them as they reached the cabin. She lifted Caroline up so that the little girl could wave at them.

Dave gulped.

"You sure you're going to be okay?" Paige asked seeing the reaction.

"Not at all," he admitted. "'Tis my brother with the difficult job though."

"Isn't there some way around this?" Cilly asked. "Sam's no more up to this than his brother is."

"Hey!" Sam protested. "Stay out of my head."

"Stay out of mine," she teased. "I'm not the only one with an intrusive power here. Can you hear anything?"

"Not in the way you mean."

"In what way?" she asked curiously.

"There's wind blowing, rain coming down," he whispered. "It's not a lot of rain, 'tis just enough to bother. A woman's crying . . . over a grave." He turned abruptly to look at his brother. "This forest. That's where our father was buried and yet where is his grave? I've never seen his grave."

"Sam, we don't have time for this," Dave told him with a tense voice.

"'Tis important," Sam informed him. "Ma thinks so," he added looking through the dirty, broken window at the mother he'd never known.

Paige followed his eyes and looked at the cabin and the woman and little girl looking back at them through the broken window. "Can she hear you as well?"

"I don't think so," Sam admitted with a sigh. Looking at his brother he asked, "Doest thou know what 'tis Ma's power?"

"She could control the earth," Dave whispered, his mind going back in time to one time he had seen her use that power. "Soil, rocks, all of it. It bended, buckled, and moved to her will."

As if in response, the earth began to shake, sending all five of them to the ground.

"I think she hast decided to make her will known," Sam informed his brother with a little laugh.

The trees where the talisman hung parted and parted some more until the talisman fell to the ground, their spell broken.

"Elisa will notice this," Sam commented.

"Undoubtedly," Dave retorted.

"Who's Elisa?" Paige asked, curiously.

"The crazy woman who banished us here." Sam winced in pain at just the thought of what she had done to him.

"She is obsessed with my little brother," Dave added. "And I believe with our father before that."

"Could she be behind this?" Paige wanted to know.

Dave shook his head. "No, this is beyond her power, but it could be her idea. I wouldn't put it past her."

"That is certainly was," Rebecca informed them as she walked out of the cabin, leading Caroline by the hand. She stopped in front of her sons with sadness in her eyes. "My darling boys. You are all grown up," she whispered, reaching up a hand to touch Dave's face, dropping it before she got even half way up.

As her mother focused on her oldest child Caroline dropped her hand and walked over to Sam. In a whispered voice, she said, "Thou art a big baby."

Sam looked at her surprised.

"Mama said thou art my baby brother," Caroline explained. "Thou art big for that."

Sam chuckled.

Rebecca paid no mind to what her younger two were doing as she spoke to her oldest. In a choked voice she said, "I'm so very sorry. I should have been there for you."

"How touching, Rebecca, darling," Elisa's hard voice said from about fifty feet away. "If you wanted to be with your boys so much, I could have arranged for that to happen."

Paige's eyes widened as she looked at Elisa. There was blood splattered on Elisa's clothes. What at first looked like freckles appeared to be blood left to dry on her face. Paige shuddered.

"So you've heard of me," Elisa smiled. "How sweet."

"You aren't wanted here," Paige informed her.

"Doesn't matter what you want," Elisa shrugged. "This is all about what I want. I can practically see Patrick's genes in you. What are you, his fifteenth great-granddaughter?"

"I'm not here to discuss my genetics with you," Paige's stare grew cold. "I'm here to find out how to end this."

"It ends when I say it does," Elisa informed her. "And I say it doesn't end until. And I say it won't end until every nonmagical being on earth is dead."

Paige sucked in a breath.

"Nothing to say about that, I see." She shrugged. "No matter. Like I said, this was never about you. And it never will be, but since you so kindly offered yourself as toys, I accept."

"What?!" Paige took a step back and glared at Elisa.

"Absolutely," Elisa grinned at her. "You didn't think I was going to refuse did you?"

"There was nothing to refuse," Paige informed her standing up straighter, trying to look intimidating.

"Elisa, leave them out of this," Rebecca ordered. "They aren't involved."

"She's your blood, Rebecca," Elisa cast an annoyed look at Rebecca. "That makes her involved." She reached into her pocket and took something out. She put her hand to her lips and blew in Rebecca's direction. The dust chased Rebecca down and stuck to her, bundling her in a cocoon of dust.

She looked at the others. Seeing the looks of horror on their faces, she rolled her eyes. "She's a ghost. Worrying about her is so pathetic." She let out an exasperated sigh. "Besides, that's just to keep her from meddling. I want to the little b**** to watch as I kill her son."

Dave gulped and looked at his brother. And then all eyes turned to look at the cocooned Rebecca as the dust began to peel away from her and form a circle on the ground at her feet. A wave of energy swept up from the ground crowning above her head.

She reached a tentative hand out and jerked it back as her hand hit the force field. Anger filled her gaze as she slid narrowed eyes toward Elisa.

"Let's make this a fair playing field," Elisa suggested, ignoring Rebecca. "No one leaves until I get what I want."

"No deal," Paige informed her.

"No choice," Elisa returned as she reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She brought it to her lips and blew. Dust flew everywhere, tacking itself onto each of them. "No orbing, whitelighter. No . . . I don't even know what you are." She glared at Cilly. "Something is seriously off with you."

"Says the woman who carves people up for fun," Arielle shuddered.

Elisa looked at her confused. "And who are you?"

"No one," Arielle backed up.

"Good," Elisa's expression was hard as she glared at Arielle. "Then, you can go." She clapped her hands together and pulled something out of them, throwing it at Arielle.

It hit Arielle before anyone could react and a bubble appeared around Arielle and she started flowing up into the air.

Elisa chuckled. "She should be fine, though I really don't care. I just want you to concentrate on entertaining me."

"We aren't here to entertain you," Paige glared at her.

"Everything in this forest is here to entertain me," Elisa corrected her. "It has been this way for over four hundred years. 'Twill not stop today."

"This forest was never here to amuse you, Elisa Richmond," Rebecca informed her killer. "No event that occurred here should have ever amused anyone. This is a place of death and you have made it so."

"Poor, poor, ugly Rebecca," Elisa rolled her eyes at her. "I do not see what Patrick could possibly have seen in you."

Dave's nostrils flared. A scowl rested on Caroline's brow. Sam closed his eyes at the sight of his older siblings' reactions as a wave a pain hit him over the fact that for however short a time, both had known their parents. He'd been far too young to remember anything.

Rebecca shook her head as Dave's hands made fists at his sides. Believing her son could not see her, she said, "Do not let her bait you, David."

He heaved in a deep breath. "She insulted you."

Rebecca shook her head. "She tries. 'Tis unworthy of us to respond."

Elisa snorted. "Always the little Miss Priss." In a mocking voice she said, "'Tis unworthy of us to respond." She opened her mouth and pointed a finger down her throat. "Gag me."

They brought four blank stares from the four Warrens. Cilly smothered a giggle with her hand. Paige just shook her head in disbelief.

Elisa glared at them. "You think that's funny, do you, freak? Well, maybe you think this is funny!" She reached behind her back and threw a potion bottle at Cilly.

Cilly jumped out of the way and then squealed in horror as the potion bottle exploded just behind where she had been and the ground started eroding. She gulped.

Elisa giggled. "That was fun. I hadn't tried that one before."

Dave glanced at his brother. _We have to do something. Any ideas?_

Sam shrugged. "Spell?" he mouthed.

"A spell?" Dave mumbled to himself. What kind of spell could he cast to aid this day? When nothing came to mind he began a familiar and oft said spell, "Thou aren't oft to care of favor won."

Sam's eyes jerked to his and he covered his mouth to keep from laughing.

Cilly frowned at them. She couldn't hear, but she saw the looks on their faces.

"A kind smile winst the day is done," Dave continued. "But to this day there ist something there."

That's when Elisa noticed them. She spun around and glared at him. She threw a knife from behind her back at him.

Cilly's eyes widened as she saw that the knife just appeared in Elisa's hand.

Dave didn't see the knife coming and Sam rammed into him, getting them both out of the way of Elisa's knife.

"I hate that spell!" Elisa screamed. When Cilly didn't manage to hide a giggle, she sent another knife at her, hitting her mark as the knife embedded itself in Cilly's thigh, forcing her down.

"Well, I love it," Sam informed her with a glare. He couldn't afford to spare a glance at Cilly as she blacked out from the pain. "Something for which thou greatly cares. In their honor …"

"Stop that!" Elisa threw a second potion at him, but he managed to avoid it. She was getting sloppy.

". . . Showest favor," Dave finished his brother's sentence. "Bestow this . . ."

Elisa spun out of the way and jabbed Dave as hard as she could with her elbow.

He went down hard, doubled over in pain.

Elisa ignored him and continued on. Her eyes searched the field for her prey. Finding Sam, she reached behind her back with both hands and sent two knives at him in rapid fire, followed only seconds later by two more.

"Knives!" Paige yelled, calling the knives to her.

Elisa scowled as the knives vanished and fell to the ground in front of Paige, but stayed silent as she plotted how to take down her next obstacle. She made a motion with her hand and the knives disappeared in a poof.

Caroline walked over to her mom and held out one tiny hand. The dust holding her mom there flew away as a gust of wind blew all around them.

Rebecca smiled at her daughter and held up a single finger to her lips.

Caroline's toothy little grin was her only response.

Elisa turned a summersault to avoid a tree branch Paige had called toward her from behind Elisa. Then, without so much as a blink, she grabbed two knives from behind her back and stabbed them into Paige's sides.

Cilly opened her eyes just in time to see her aunt go down. Not for the first time she wished she had paid more attention when her mom had been trying to teach her about witch magic. Never before had she so felt that she earned her name, blacking out like she did. She'd never been all that interested in being a witch, much to her mom's disappointment, but right now she wished she had. She'd spent a lot of time with her dad, learning about being a cupid. She looked down at the ring on her finger and sighed. Now was not the time to lament the choices she had made.

Careful of her leg, she pulled herself across the field toward her aunt. She didn't dare take the knife out not knowing what would happen if she did.

Elisa spared a glance for Cilly, before grabbing a knife from behind her back and flinging it at the ground in Cilly's path. "Stay put, or that will be closer next time," she ordered Cilly even as she made a motion with her hand and the knife vanished as the others had. "If you really want to die, I'll put you next in line."

Cilly gulped. It was no use to protest that she had to stop her aunt from bleeding to death. This woman had stabbed her. She didn't care.

Satisfied that Cilly was going to do as she said, Elisa continued her perusal. Dave was still curled up in a ball, trying to fend off the pain. Apparently she'd hurt him worse than she'd thought. A satisfied smile lit her lips until her eyes met little Caroline.

There was something about the tiny girl that did something nothing else did, it bothered her. Caroline was dead. She was no threat to Elisa. So why did Elisa get the idea she was a threat.

"Thou should be ashamed," Caroline whispered.

Her voice was so low, Elisa almost missed it.

"I know thy mama didn't teach thou better, but what of thy papa?" Caroline added. Her voice dropped even lower as she added, "My papa taught me to love people."

There was death in Elisa's eyes as she snarled at Caroline. "You leave my Papa out of this! If you weren't already dead, I'd kill you for that."

Cilly looked up startled. What was going on?

Dave grimaced as he moved his head enough to look at Elisa and his sister. Mr. Richmond? What could Caroline possibly be talking about?

"Thy papa wasn't like this," Caroline commented. "Thou knows that, don't thou? 'Tis a sad thing."

"You go too far!" Elisa screamed. She ran at the little girl, going through her ghostly form.

Dave forced himself up, grabbing up a knife Elisa had dropped as he forced himself to ignore the pain. He ran at Elisa and stabbed down at her.

Elisa saw him just in time and instead of rolling out of the way, she made a motion with her hand and the knife was gone. His closed fist hit her in the chest, but she ignored it and pulled some dust out of her pouch. She shoved the dust in his face and he started floating up into the air.

Holding some dust still in her hand, she moved her hand round and round in a circle.

Cilly felt her mind screaming at her as Dave's terror and Elisa's rage clashed in her head. She could feel the eerie calm of little Caroline despite the girl's status of dead. Or maybe that was why Caroline was so calm. She was already dead. She didn't fear what Elisa could do to her.

Dave spun around the air in time with Elisa's fist.

Cilly felt her head screaming as the emotions rolled off of him. She was going to have to fight this and she was going to have to learn how to control this, first chance she got. There was no more shirking her training.

If only her mom was still around the train her.

Cilly wasn't the only one whose head was screaming. Dave's thoughts were going rapid fire at his brother, so much so that Sam was petrified. As if that wasn't hard enough, he had everyone else's thoughts going through his head, too. Clearly the connection was not just with his brother.

"Hey!" Caroline yelled. "Put my brother down!"

Elisa turned to glare at her, but spun her hand faster as she did. "I don't listen to you."

"You listened to your dad, though," Cilly said from behind her. "Didn't you? I felt you when she mentioned him. You loved him. What happened?"

"None of your business," Elisa screamed, stopping her spinning. Dave was still up in the air, but at least he wasn't moving.

"I get it," Cilly added. "My dad's not dead, at least I hope he's not, but he's gone. I've lost him and I have no idea if I can get him back."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Elisa smirked. "I suppose he's been cursed with the rest of the mortals."

Cilly laughed, she actually managed to laugh at that. "Well, actually, my dad's not mortal, so I'd have to say no."

"Not mortal?" Elisa looked at her funny. "Right, you're the freak. What exactly is wrong with you?"

Cilly cocked her head to the side. "Nothing's wrong with me. You?"

Elisa frowned at her. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Cilly repeated. "What's wrong with you?"

Instead of answering, Elisa began spinning her fisted hand around in quick circles, Dave spinning in time with her fist, and then she flung her hand at Cilly, sending Dave slamming into Cilly. A look of satisfaction lit Elisa's lips as she turned to face Sam.

Behind her, Cilly forced herself up once more. Wincing as she pulled the knife out of her leg, she made a run for Elisa, knife drawn.

Elisa caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and spun around, her hand going to a pouch at her side. "How many times must I tell you to stay down before you do?" she demanded to know even as she blew powder in Cilly's face and Cilly fell to the ground. "Anyone else planning to make a move?" she asked as she scanned the area.

She knew Paige wasn't getting up, so she flicked only the barest of glances at her. Sam was still up, but that was how she wanted it. Prey that died too quickly was no fun and she's been playing with this prey for far too long to make the kill a quick thing.

Her eyes fell on Dave, curled up in a ball and the corners of her lips curled. She'd never been a fan of his dark locks, but he'd grown up to be a reasonable good looking man. Perhaps now that she was going to kill his brother she'd turn her attention to him. Blind or not, it mattered little in this game. The hunt wasn't the part she'd come to enjoy most. It was the carving, the making Sam hers in a way that no one else ever would. His pain was a delight to her eyes and his screams were music to her ears.

She didn't even bother looking at Rebecca and Caroline. Rebecca had always been beneath her notice and Caroline was worth even less than that.

The sound of a branch snapping was the only warning she got before something sharp stabbed into her side and something else, a hand maybe, wrapped around her ankle and pulled her down.

Elisa snarled as she pulled the arrowhead out of her side and rolled over in the dirt and kicked back at her attacker. She was so focused on the attack from behind, she almost didn't see the one from in front as Sam slammed a large piece of deadwood at her head. Rolling out of the way just in time, she grimaced as the wound in her side ground into the dirt.

The Warren brothers were going to pay for this.

Elisa grabbed some powder out of one of pouches and through it behind her at Dave. With a look of pure malice on her face as she looked at Sam, she raised her hand into the air and spun Dave around, again, before slamming her closed fist as hard and fast as she could in the direction of a tree.

There was a very satisfying crunch as Dave hit the tree and this time he wasn't getting up.

"This is getting old, Samuel," she commented as she watched his reaction to his brother's more obvious injuries. She was rather pleased with the results. "I don't really want to kill your brother yet, but the next time any of them interfere I will kill whoever it is."

"What makes you think you can?" Sam snarled at her.

"Look around you." She ordered him. "What makes you think I can't?"

Sam shrugged. "I'm still standing, aren't I?"

"Easily fixed," she growled, throwing more dust at him.

Sam tried to side step it, but dust is harder to avoid than a knife and the dust hit him, just not as directly as she had hoped. "My legs," Sam whispered horrified as he realized he couldn't feel his feet.

Elisa scowled. "You're still awake." As soon as she said the words, a smile lit her face. "You're still awake. That means you'll feel it when I plunge my knife into you." A look of pure delight crossed her face. "This is going to be so much fun."

As she advanced on him, Sam tried to backup, but his legs wouldn't work and he fell down. Using his hands he tried to scramble away, but it was an easy thing for her to catch him.

There was a wild look of excitement as Elisa pulled out yet another knife from behind her back and advanced on him. She hesitated only slightly when the wind started to pick up, her focus fully on Sam.

And then something hit her neck at such speeds Sam couldn't see what it was and it took her head with it. He gaped as her body fell to the ground by his feet. What had just happened? He looked around bewildered, his eyes first falling on his brother laying unconscious at the bottom of a tree. Or at least he hoped Dave was unconscious. His brother didn't appear to have moved.

Next his eyes fell on the all too still bodies of Paige and Cilly. Even from where he was he could tell that blood continued to flow from Paige's wounds. There were no visible wounds on Cilly other than the obviously injured leg, but whatever Elisa had done to her had left her out cold.

Still unable to feel his legs he turned to look in the direction the attack had come. Standing there was his mother and his sister. Caroline still had her little hand held out. Rebecca held her hand up above her head as if she held something between her fingers. She let her fingers relax and her arm drop.

A thud sounded behind him. He gulped as his eyes met his mother's. "Mama?"

Rebecca reached down and pulled Caroline in her arms before looking at her youngest child. "She should have known better than to turn her back on me. A mother will give her life before she lets someone harm her child. I'm so sorry I didn't stop her sooner."

A grin tugged at his lips. He knew that she had saved him the day she had died, maybe even at the cost of her own life. And now she had saved him, again. Walking over to her, he reached out a hand to touch her face. When his hand went through her he sighed. "Ghost. Right."

"It's all right, son," she assured him. "I love you and I don't regret my decisions."

"'Lisa said you had a very 'portant daughter," Caroline commented. "My baby brother."

That made him chuckle. "Yes, she said the same to me. You don't look much like a big sister."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I am."

A scream pulled Sam's attention away from his mom and sister.

* * *

So there is the newest chapter. Are you ready for the next one? Do you want to know who screamed and why? Send some reviews my way and I will send you a new chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one.

A question to think about: Considering everything that you know about the Richmond family, what is it about Elisa's father that had her reacting like that?


	22. Worth It

After much consideration, I have determined that this chapter really goes here due to the timing of it. Sorry about the confusion for anyone who has been reading this in order.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One - Worth It

10:07 AM (11:07 PM in Boston)

The room was silent. That was the first thing Seth noticed when he appeared in the room. The sound of sobbing broke the silence and Seth turned toward the sound.

A dark haired girl knelt on the side of a bed, tears streaming down her face. A second dark haired girl was at her side, hugging her from behind.

"There's still time," the second girl's whispered voice reached Seth. "He's not dead yet. Mom said . . ."

"Mom's not doing anything," the other girl protested with a sob. "I get it. I do. It took me hours to get through the door and even then Faith had to practically shove me through it, but nothing can get done if no one does anything."

"Things are getting done," Seth informed them revealed his presence. When the sisters looked at him startled he added, "Pat and Vicki Trudeau, I presume."

Pat leveled a look at him as she stood. "Do I know you?"

He shook his head. "No, we've not met. I know most of your family though. Aunt Paige sent me to update your mom on the situation. Do you know where I can find her?"

"Aunt Paige?" Vicki asked with a sniff. "When'd she send you?"

"About fifteen minutes ago," he decided after a moment's hesitation. "I filled Aunt Piper and Uncle Leo in first."

"Then how'd you get here so fast?" Vicki asked at the same time Pat asked, "Aunt? Uncle? Are you related to us?"

Seth shook his head with a slight smile. "It's honorary. You aunts helped my dad reunite with me after my manticore mother was . . . gone, which also answers how I got here so fast. I shimmered."

"You're a demon?" Pat asked startled, pulling Vicki to her feet and behind her.

"Raised by my human dad with my human brother and my dad's human girlfriend," Seth informed them, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Your cousin, Wyatt, is my best friend. Enough of this. My name is Seth Silberman and I need to talk to your mom."

Pat relaxed all of a sudden and she let go of her sister's arm. "You're Seth," she said with a little bit of wonder. "Melinda mentioned you."

"In less than glowing terms I'm sure," he scoffed.

Pat's lips twitched. "Well, yes, but she did say you were good."

"Will you help me find your mom then?"

Vicki walked out from behind her sister and grabbed up Prue's purse from the night stand. She started rummaging through it."

"I would, but I'm not sure where she is," Pat admitted. "She should have been back by now."

Behind her Vicki pulled out a scrying crystal and a brochure. Ignoring them, she started unfolding the brochure.

"She hasn't been leaving this room unless she has to," Pat added.

"My dad's the same way," Seth agreed. "My brother's only stage three, but when stage three means you have about two days to live . . ."

"Yeah, I know," she agreed quickly with a gulp. "I want out of Boston when this is over. Too many are dead."

"Found her!" Vicki announced.

The other two looked at her startled.

Seth was the first to find his tongue. "How?" While he'd heard of scrying, it wasn't something he'd seen a lot of and she'd already returned the crystal to her mom's purse.

"Where?" was Pat's question.

Vicki ignored Seth's question and pointed to a room on the map in the brochure. "Here."

"I'm on it," Seth informed them heading toward the door.

"We're coming, too," Pat insisted, grabbing his arms.

Seth turned and looked at them. "Can you fight?"

"Why would we need to?" Pat countered.

"I don't think your mom would let doctor's hold her up for very long," Seth announced. "There are two warlocks on the loose and maybe she met up with them. Or maybe they'll come here, in which case someone needs to stay here. Can you fight?"

Pat stared at him for several seconds. "Vicki, stay here."

"But . . . but," Vicki protested.

"Stay here," Pat repeated. "Your powers may not be much help here, but you can cast spells which is more than I can do. Mom doesn't know him. If she's in some sort of trouble, she'll shoot first and ask questions later. He doesn't need that."

Vicki heaved in a huge breath. "Stay here? Alone? I could barely get in the door and you want me to stay here alone? What if dad dies? What if you aren't here and Mom's not here and dad dies?"

"I'm sorry," Pat told her sister as she gave her a hug. "We just have to hope that doesn't happen. Be brave."

Vicki gulped and heaved in another breath. "I'll try."

"If you're coming, then come," Seth called from the doorway. "I understand why you are hesitant to leave her, but we don't know what's happening with your mom, so we need to go."

As soon as they got into the hall they noticed how empty it seemed. They headed down the hall in the direction Vicki had indicated. There was a single nurse at the nurse's station. When they started past her she held up her palm.

Seth frowned.

"Sorry, no one but staff down that way," she told him.

Seth's frowned deepened. He looked down the hallway in the direction they had been headed. Seeing a dozen or more people coming in and out of a room close to the one Vicki had pointed out her sighed and turned a smile at the nurse. "Of course. Thank you for your time. My . . . cousin and I will be on our way then."

Pat frowned at him startled. "What . . ?"

Seth grabbed her arm and pulled her along the corridor. Once they had rounded a corner he let go. "We can't rouse suspicion. There's another way."

"My mom's down there," Pat reminded him. "What are you thinking?"

"Did you see how many people where down there? We weren't getting into the room your sister pointed out even if it wasn't the one they were focused on which it may well be."

"Then, how?"

Seth sighed. "It depends on if they are in the room your mom's in or not. Can you find out?"

"What?" Pat looked at him startled.

"Your sister pointed out a room, 421. I couldn't see the room number from where we were standing, but maybe you could. I bet you could come up with some reason for standing there at the nurse's station for long enough to trying and get a good angle to read the number on the doors."

"Or we could count," Pat suggested.

He snorted. "Or we could do that. I didn't do that when we were in that hall."

"Well, we know it happened after mom left the room, because if it didn't then she wouldn't be down that hall." She groaned. "Do you think it's mom?"

"I honestly don't know," he admitted.

"Right," Pat said, deciding something unsaid. "I'll see what I can do." She walked back around the corner and up to the nurse's station. She stopped in front of the nurse and leaned up against the counter. When the nurse looked up she flashed her an unhappy smile. "I was wondering, can you give me some information about a patient?" She wasn't sure what name to say, but she'd think of something.

"Are you a relative?"

Pat shook her head and glanced down the hall. She saw a familiar woman walk out of the busy room sobbing and gulped. "Classmate. Her name is Casey Rigby. I'm new to the area and she's been really nice to me since I arrived. She was diagnosed just before they shut down the schools."

The nurse shook her head. "Sorry, only relatives. That's the rule."

"Can't you tell me anything?" Pat pleaded. "I understand that it's against the rules, but my dad got sick a few hours before she did and he's stage five, so I'm worried about her."

The nurse glared at her. "I said no information," she reminded Pat even as she typed in the info into the computer. Her eyes widened, her lips formed an "O", and then her eyes softened. "I'm terribly sorry." She glanced back toward the crowd and Pat knew she was right.

"What's the matter?" Pat pressed, having to hear it both to know and to see if she could get the room number. "What happened to Casey?" She hated that this was at Casey's expense, but there was nothing she could do to help Casey now.

"I'm sorry about your friend," the nurse hedged as she looked at Pat with sad eyes.

Pat frowned. Casey hadn't actually been her friend, but she'd liked the older girl.

"She was in room 425 down the hall, but you won't be able to go down that way." The nurse shook her head. "I'm sorry. This is really hard. This job is never easy, but until this last week or so there was the joy of seeing someone recover."

"I don't understand how she could be dead," Pat heaved in a deep breath. "She started showing symptoms after me dad and he's bad, but he's not dead."

The nurse bit her lip, but she didn't say anything else.

Pat sighed and walked back to Seth.

He was leaning against a wall with his eyes closed. His eyes snapped open as she approached.

"Tired?"

"No time to be tired," he replied paraphrasing what his best friend had told him earlier. "Did you learn anything?"

"More than I wanted to know," Pat admitted. "The room everyone's hovering around belonged to a girl I know. Room 425. She's dead." Tears shimmered in her eyes as she said the last.

Seth was at a loss for words. Finally, he spoke, saying only, "I'm sorry."

Pat blinked away tears. "I barely knew her, but she was nice to me and there haven't been a whole lot of people willing to let the new girl in."

Still not sure how to respond, Seth stayed quiet.

Pat heaved in a few breaths. "We'd better get going. We know they aren't in the room Mom's in and she might need us."

He nodded. "Come here then," he directed her, pulling her into a hug. As soon as he had her safely tucked into his arms he glanced around and shimmered out of there.

Pat's eyes slid shut, intensifying the unfamiliar feeling in spades. When she opened them everything was dark. "Were are we?" she whispered as she tried to adjust to the dark.

"Shh," Seth warned back from an uncertain location to her right. After a moment he added, "Stay here," and pushed open a door revealing them to be in a hospital room bathroom.

You don't seem like much," a voice informed Prue through the haze of pain. Bitterness laced her voice as she added, "so how did you take down my brother like that?"

Prue tried not to give away that she was awake as she looked up through her lashes.

"A lone witch," the voice spat out. "You'd think a four-hundred-year-old warlock could manage a single stupid witch and yet clearly there is more to you than meets the eyes." There was a pause and then, "So what do I do with you. You're abilities are rather useless to me, since they are rather ordinary abilities."

Cold fingers touched Prue's neck and yanked her into a premonition.

_A young girl was dressed in a plain black gown with a white apron. She clung to the skirt of a woman who bore a resemblance to Jessica. The girl looked up at the woman and at the paper the woman was examining. In thin black letters were the words, "Blood of the offspring flows as a flood. Death begins anew, cloaked within a hood. Water drinkable only by the magical few. Death's cold lips kiss the untrue. Time flows on and the poison spread. Until the whole mortal world lies dead. This offering I give as my appeal. With a witch's death seal this deal."_

Prue gasped as she came out of the premonition.

Jessica let out a little thrill. "Premonitions. Now, that's more like it."

Knowing the game was up, Prue opened her eyes. She was just fast enough to see Jessica lift up an atheme and then that atheme disappear with a blur.

"What in the underworld was that?" Jessica swirled about.

Prue kicked out her legs and Jessica fell hard onto the floor. Prue looked across the room at where a young man with lightish brown hair looked down at the atheme in his hands.

He looked up, as if he sensed Prue's eyes on him. "Looks like your mom didn't really need our help," he commented in the direction of the hospital room bathroom.

"Are you sure she's out?" Pat's voice asked from inside the bathroom. "I'd rather not get in the way."

Prue frowned. "For the moment. Pat, who is this?"

Pat peaked her head out of the bathroom. "That's Seth. Melinda mentioned him, remember. He's Wyatt's friend."

"Aunt Paige sent me," Seth offered. "She wanted me to catch you up on what's going on."

Prue stared down at Jessica and groaned. she couldn't do it, not when Jessica was out cold. She'd made Jessica mortal, the blood flowing out of the wound in Jessica's head was proof of that, but now she felt her conscience prick at the thought of killing her while she was unconscious.

"Mom, are you okay?"

Prue turned startled to look at her older daughter and the young man with her, the unfamiliar young man who has stopped Jessica from landing a killing blow before Prue could regain her feet. "Who are you?"

"Mom?" Pat stepped back startled.

"Not you, Pat," Prue assured her daughter. "Him."

"Seth Silberman," he replied easily. "I'm a good friend of your nephew, Wyatt."

"A fast friend of his," Prue commented with raised eyebrow.

Seth shrugged. "We shared a playpen when we first met and on frequent visits after that. As we grew older we played together a lot and her orbed us places. I'm here because Aunt Paige asked me to fill you and Piper in on what's going on."

"Aunt Paige?" Prue frowned at him. "Are you related to Henry?"

Seth waved it off. "Honorary title."

Prue nodded. Though she hadn't met him before, she'd heard enough from her sisters about him to not be too worried once she knew his name.

"What's the message?"

"First, there is a way to counter this that has been used before," he informed her pacing the room. "We should really get out of here."

Prue stared down at Oliver and Jessica, one dead, one likely to tell the story with her own slant when she woke. Jessica needed to be dealt with, but Prue couldn't kill her, not like this. She turned to look at Seth. "I know you didn't come through the door, so how'd you come in."

Seth blinked in surprise. "I . . . uh . . . I shimmered."

"Good. I can use that."

Seth's eyes widened. "You can?"

She nodded. "I don't know if she can blink or not. It's rare, but it happens and she did run in here, so I'm not sure. I don't have time or the ingredients to make a stripping potion, so I need a string. I'll bind her powers and then have you drop her off somewhere she can't get out of. It's only temporary, but it should buy me enough time to get this," she grimaced at the bed with the dead girl, "dealt with."

"I know a place I can lock her up where she can't blink out of." He gave her a wry look. "I'm just not sure if I can get out."

"How do you normally get out?" Prue wanted to know, her curiosity roused.

"It's left locked and I think Chris has the key," Seth shrugged as he examined the two bodies and tried to figure out what to do with Jessica.

Prue frowned. "Just where is this place?"

"The back-room at P3."

"P3?" Prue gaped at him. "Why does it have an anti-teleportation spell on it?"

Seth shrugged. "I've never asked, but I know Aunt Piper lets Chris keep the key so I'll have to get the key from him."

Prue nodded. "Get Pat and me back to Andy's room before you take her. And be careful. I don't know if she can blink, but she threw me across the room without touching me."

Seth glanced over at where Jessica lay. "Can do."

"And be fast," Prue urged him. "I don't know why they aren't here yet, but they're going to hear this." Before Seth could respond, she squinted her eyes and flung Oliver's dead body out the broken hospital window.

Startled, Seth didn't react as the crinkling of the glass brought shouts from the hall.

"Get us out of her," Prue demanded in a whisper.

Seth started and grabbed Pat. "Hide in the bathroom," he whispered back as he pulled Pat down next to Jessica's prone body. "I'll be back he assured her as he shimmered out with Pat and Jessica.

Not having time to argue as the voices came closer to the door Prue started moving. None of what they were saying registered as Prue slipped into the bathroom. She started to reach for the door when the outer door opened. Pulling her arm back in, Prue slipped into the darkness.

A faint sound was the only warning Prue got before she was grabbed from behind. The air around her distorted. The darkness of the bathroom turned to the light of Andy's hospital room and slowly the distorted image cleared.

Seth let go of her and stepped away.

Prue looked around. Pat was up against the wall looking at Jessica wearily. Vicki was huddled up in the chair next to Andy's bed with her knees hugged in her arms. "Seth, deal with her first, then return and deliver Paige's message."

He nodded and squatted down next to Jessica. In a shimmer of distorted air he was gone.

* * *

For readers who just want the next new chapter, skip to chapter twenty-four. Otherwise, enjoy the next chapter.


	23. Headless Bodies and Healing Hands

First thank you to my readers and an even bigger thank you to my reviewers:

Vinny and Nex - Yep. Off with her head indeed. And I liked Elisa, too, as you well know. Why do you think I made . . ? But then you know most likely who I mean.

PhoenixHalliwell13 - Sorry it took a few days longer than I meant for it to take. My sister got married six hours ago. Not exactly focused on fanfics this past week.

This wasn't the greatest battle, but Elisa is defeated and hopefully they can get on to the more pressing matter of saving the world . . . assuming they are all alive (not counting the two ghosts) and can walk.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two – Headless Bodies and Healing Hands

10:11 AM (1:11 PM in Duxbury)

Arielle stood at the edge of the clearing, twigs in her hair and tears in her clothes. Her gaze was firmly on Elisa's headless body. "She has no head." Arielle stated, horrified. Sam relaxed. That was all she was reacting to. He looked down at Elisa as he picked himself up, but his eyes didn't stop on her. He looked horrified as well as his eyes stopped on the bleeding body of his brother as the events of the last few minutes set in.

How could he be so focused on his long dead mother and sister that he didn't pay any attention to his hopefully still living older brother? As soon as he reached his brother's side, he started checking for signs of life.

"What happened here?" Arielle asked as she walked into the clearing and looked around.

"She liked knives," Caroline announced.

Arielle gulped.

"This," Rebecca informed Arielle as she made her way to her sons, "was her not trying to kill anyone other than my younger son."

"This is trying not to kill?" Arielle asked in disbelief.

"No, this is not trying to kill," Rebecca corrected. "There is a difference."

"Who cares what the difference is," Arielle argued. "The point is they are dead."

"No," Sam told her, looking up from his brother. "Dave's alive. And the girl 'tis only asleep. Or at least I think she is. Thou should attempt to wake her while I try to bandage my brother's wounds."

"Why not just call a whitelighter?" Arielle asked bewildered as she walked hesitantly to where Paige and Cilly lay. "I would, but my whitelighter has not been heading my calls."

"Mama, what is she talking about?" Sam asked as he looked across the field at his mother.

Arielle groaned. "I suppose that explains that. If only Paige was awake, she could help." She almost tripped as a thought formed in her head. "She is not, but . . ." She didn't finish the thought as she began digging in her pocket. She pulled out a cell phone and punched some buttons.

A sound caught her attention and she groaned as she realized Paige had her phone in her pocket. She sighed and sped walked over to Paige. Once there she stooped down and dug into her pocket, pulling out Paige's phone. She opened it and unlocked it. Thank goodness there wasn't a password. "Call . . ." She froze. Call who? "Hank!" she exclaimed. Paige's son, Hank, was in her grade. They didn't go to the same school, but she had met him a few times at school functions. "Call Hank," she repeated and waited for the phone to ring.

* * *

Alanna let go of Hank as soon as they were fully materialized and she spun around to glare at him. "How on earth do you get lost orbing across town?! How on earth do you get lost orbing period?"

Before Hank could answer his phone rang and he held up a finger as he used the other hand to dig into his pocket and pull out his phone. Seeing the number on the other end he smiled. "Everything all right, Mom?"

"This is not your mom," Arielle informed him. "Please do not freak out on me. I need you to listen. Your mother needs help and she is not the only one."

"What do you mean?" Hank asked, glancing at his sister who was still glaring at him.

"She is need of a whitelighter and fast," Arielle told him. "Do you know how to contact one? I know that your mother can heal. Can you or either of your sisters or any of your cousins?"

Hank gulped. "I'm coming." He didn't wait for instructions as he shut the phone and turned his attention to his sister. "Stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Alanna did not seem pleased by this. "I can talk to Dad myself. I don't need your help."

"Stay here," Hank repeated, his voice growing steely.

"But I can . . ."

"Alanna Samantha Mitchell, just stay here," Hank ordered her. "Wait until I get back."

Alanna glared at him, her eyes narrowing as she said, "Henry Wallace Mitchell, Jr., you are not my boss. I am your older sister and you will –"

"Mom's hurt," Hank told her reluctantly. "Stay here."

Alanna stared at him shocked. "What?!"

Hank didn't answer. He didn't have an answer. Instead he just orbed out of there. There would be time for answers when he got back.

* * *

Arielle closed her phone. "He is coming."

"Who's coming?" Sam wanted to know. "How can he help?"

"'He is her son," she told him pointing at Paige.

Sam raised a surprised eyebrow. "And how exactly . . ." He stopped mid question as blue-white orbs swirled around and formed into Hank. "Oh."

"You are here," Arielle said, trying to get Hank's attention.

Not even the sound of her voice registered with Hank as his eyes zoned in on his mom and he ran to her side. He dropped to his knees next to her and held his hands over her, begging his powers to work. He'd rarely had need for this power, but now it was imperative that it work.

He sighed in relief as a gold glow covered his hands and her wounds began to heal.

Sam was momentarily frozen as he watched Paige's wounds seem to heal from nothing more than glowing hands. A moan of pain from his brother caught his attention and both relieved some of his fear and reminded him that whatever this boy was doing to Paige, he needed him to do to Dave. "My brother," he pleaded. "Help Dave, please."

Hank was so focused, he didn't notice.

Arielle put a hand on his shoulder. "You can get back to your mother. She is not the only one in need of help."

It was enough to get his attention. He looked around and the first thing he saw was Cilly.

Arielle held tight on his shoulder when he made a move toward her. "She will be fine for a bit more. A little sleeping powder and the one wound in her leg is all that is wrong with her." She used her hands to direct his attention toward Dave. "We are not sure how badly he is hurt. He was thrown into the tree. He was bleeding and unconscious before he hit the ground. I am worried about him."

Hank heaved in a deep breath, but he did as she directed and headed over to where Dave lay. Getting down on his knees, again, he held his hands over the most obvious of Dave's wounds, his head and jumped back as if burned. "What on earth?!"

Everyone snapped to attention.

"What's wrong with my brother?" Sam asked full of concern.

"Nothing, nothing," Hank looked at Dave with determination. "Don't worry about it," he said before he held his hands over Dave waited for the gold glow. He ignored the relief he felt as the glow appeared and he ignored the feeling of electricity coursing through his body as Dave's wounds slowly healed. Frustration was getting to him almost as much as the electricity. The wound was taking too long to heal.

That's when the grass caught fire.

Wind appeared out of nowhere and just like that the fire was smothered by a tiny funnel of wind. Forcing himself to ignore it, he focused on Dave. It was so difficult to keep his hands there, but he did until Dave's eyes fluttered open. Finally, he could breathe a sigh of relief. He stood and brushed himself off as he looked around. He smiled as he saw his mother standing there watching.

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" he grinned. "I'm playing doctor since you couldn't. Cilly?"

"Cilly's got a headache," his cousin announced, "but otherwise I'm fine. Your mom took care of my leg."

"You woke her?"

"Elisa talks too much when she brags," an unfamiliar woman's voice told him.

He didn't look for the voice as he took in the rip in Cilly's jeans. What had happened here?

"She dost love to brag," Sam commented.

Looking around, Hank found that other than the familiar looking wild child in ripped designer jeans, everyone seemed to be all right. At least it was until he looked down. Just a few feet from where he knelt on the ground was a headless body. He felt a chill fun through his body as he couldn't seem to take his eyes off it. "Mom? Since when do we behead people?"

He couldn't see his mom's face as she frowned and followed his eyes, but he could almost hear her reaction in her voice as she spotted the headless body. "Oh."

"Mom?" This time he did look at her.

She gave him a little half smile. "I don't know how she got like that, but she is the reason for my injuries and Dave's and everything else you see here."

An uneasy feeling flooded his body. "One person did all this damage?"

"More or less," his cousin mumbled. "I think we managed at least a little of it."

"I don't mean the broken tree branches," he informed her. "I mean the damage to all of you."

"'Tis common enough for her," the unfamiliar woman informed him.

Looking across the field this time, he spotted someone he hadn't before. A young woman in her mid to late twenties, wearing what appeared to be Puritan garb stood there with a small girl of maybe three or four at her side.

"She was trained from a young age and she has had a very long time to train."

With a frown he continued to look at her. "Who are you anyway? You're not from around here."

"Actually, I am from exactly around here," she told him with a smile. "My home was perhaps one hundred fathoms from here, perhaps a little further."

_Fathoms?_ Hank shook his head hard. _I'll look it up later._ "Fine, fine. You're from around here. _Who_ are you?"

A smile lit her lips for some reason and she replied, "I am Rebecca Warren. I am the mother of those two strapping young men standing by you and the beautiful girl here with me."

His gaze switching between mother and sons, Hank's confusion only grew. "How _old_ are you?"

"Hank!" his mom sounded horrified. "You never ask a lady her age."

Cilly laughed, not giving him a chance to reply. "Hank, remember that entry in the Book that you found about Patrick Warren?"

If she wanted instant attention she sure had found a way to get it. The four Warrens looked at her with different levels of surprise and interest.

Cilly ignored. "This is his family."

"Them?" He looked around. "But the entry said they were dead."

"Mama is," Dave offered. "And so ist Caroline."

"He's not a ghost?"

Sam sighed. "It seems thou should take them at their word even if thou wilt not take us at ours."

"Calm down, Son," Rebecca lifted Caroline up into her arms and headed toward her sons. "Thou must admit, it is a rather incredible thing we ask him to believe."

Dave smiled at that. "If thou wishes for something incredible, I can provide something most incredible for you." He walked over to his mother and sister and got to where he was face to face with his little sister, he touched a finger to the air right in front of her face, and in a whispered voice that was still loud enough for Hank and everyone else to hear, he said, "I see you."

Rebecca gasped. There was a catch in her voice as she exclaimed, "Oh, my lord!"

Looking at his mother confused, he asked, "What's with her?"

Paige shook her head, just as confused.

"He is blind," Arielle told them. When the only response she got was blank stares and frowns, she added, "He cannot see. Do you not get it? He cannot see, but he can see her. He can see his sister."

That got reactions. It was Cilly's reaction that got the most attention though. She laughed.

It was a laugh of delight and discovery, but it was a laugh all the same and garnered a pretty annoyed look from Sam. "'Tis not funny."

She smiled. "I know. It's wonderful. How did you get your vision back?"

Dave shrugged. "I don't know. It sometimes comes and goes, but it always seems to come back. Of course, it has only been today that it started." He looked at his mom and with the most childish glee on his face he said, "I think I might have come into my powers, Mama."

"Hey!"

"Sam, too," Dave grinned at his little brother.

Rebecca covered her mouth with her free hand as another gasp escaped her lips. "Then . . ?"

Dave shrugged. "Probably, but I'm not going to worry about that."

For some reason Rebecca's eyes went to Hank. "Do you think . . ?"

"I have no idea," Dave replied before repeating, "but I'm not going to worry about that. Sam seemed to think you wanted to find Papa's grave. Why?"

A smile curved Rebecca's lips, before it was replaced with a frown. "Patrick told me 'twas Elisa who he suspected was behind his being framed and I believe he would have tried to watch her. If he was watching her, he'd know what happened that night all those years ago when I died."

"So why don't we just summon him?"

Hank found himself nodding to his mom's question.

Rebecca did not nod. She shook her head sadly. "I tired that, but something prevented him from coming. Sometimes if you go to their grave there is a stronger link."

Paige frowned. "Why have I never heard that before?"

Rebecca shrugged. "The old magic is sometimes lost as time goes on. Thou would do well to learn it, if thou hast not already."

He had to keep himself from chuckling at the scowl on his mother's face. His cousin was not so successful at hiding her mirth which meant his mother's glare was not aimed at him.

"'Twas not meant as an insult," Rebecca tried to assure her. "It is a common thing. My mother once told my sister and myself about one of our ancestors and I felt humiliated, for the magic my mother described was beyond what I could even imagine, let alone reenact. It was enough to convince both myself and my sister, Hannah, to practice our craft even more." Her head dropped down and her chest heaved as she added, "I wonder what happened to her after we left for Plymouth colony."

"Plymouth colony," Paige mouthed in surprise. Then, she shook her head and said, "I forgot that you were from the colonial days. Though I certainly shouldn't have."

"Colonial days?" Rebecca queried at her. "No, do not tell me. Elisa told me far more than I ever desired to know. Her tauntings the last time were of a war in which a country became and of another war in which that country nearly broke itself in two. And in both wars she said that the blood of my blood was spilled and in the first on both sides as she said my brother's descendants fought on one side and my own descendents on the other."

Her two sons looked at each other, distress in their eyes.

Dave heaved in a deep breath and looked at his mother. "Mama, obviously Sam and I art gone from our time and it could not be either of us fighting in this war you speak of and I have no offspring, so this cannot be an offspring of mine you speak of, but Sam's only child ist a daughter. When is this war?"

Rebecca sighed. "I know not. I imagine they know, but perhaps it is best not to ask."

Arielle exhaled and kicked at the dirt at her feet. "Yes, we do know."

Cilly gave her a look. "And, yes, she's right. We shouldn't be talking about it."

"What could it hurt?"

"I don't know, but can you prove it won't?"

Arielle frowned. After several seconds she sighed. "Fine. I will not say anything."

Hank rolled his eyes at them. "The country, in case any of you are wondering is called the United States of America. The first war was against England in a successful attempt to gain our independence, which I would imagine is why your brother's descendants fought in it, if they are still in England."

"Hank!"

He shook his head. "This is ridiculous. They don't know what year this is. They don't what years those wars were fought. They've never heard of the people involved in them seeing as those people weren't anywhere close to born when they lived. Regardless of what Cilly or the other girl thinks, knowing that is not going to hurt anything."

His mother just shook her head at him. "It still is probably not a good idea."

"Are we going to argue this? Or are we going to find out if my Patrick can help us?"

"Lead on."

Hank grinned at Cilly.

She grinned back and shook in silent laughter.

"Mom?"

Paige and Rebecca both looked at Hank, Rebecca smiling and looking back to her own children when she realized that it was not one of her sons speaking.

"I really need to get back to 'Lanna. She'll be worried about you and we still need to talk to Dad and see what's going on with his boss."

Paige pulled him to her and pressed a kiss on his forehead. "Be careful."

He swiped his hand across his forehead and nodded. "I will. I love you, Mom." Without waiting for an answer he disappeared in blue-white orbs.

* * *

So did anyone else have to look up "fathom" . . . I sure did, although I was looking for a word that meant that for four hundred years ago while Hank just has to look up the word to find the meaning.

Talk about rewrite time. Once I finish the next chapter (it still refuses to cooperate fully, but it's close), I have to go through the next one and see if I need to rewrite things, because Hank was most certainly not detoring to the East Coast originally.

So you know how in the prologue you saw the Richmonds sacrifice Rebecca . . . there was more going on there then you know. You have met all five of Willamina's children, but you only know some of her grandkids. Oliver and Jessica mostly. Imagine if you will a (not so young) lady who looks up to her Aunt Elisa as a role model . . .

Have you got that image in your mind? You will.


	24. Paint Brushes and Candles

Hello, everyone. I've got a new chapter for you to read, but first I'd like to thank my reviewers:

Vinny and Nex - Well, you've read most of this chapter, probably more than once, but there's a little bit new for you. I'm glad you loved Elisa, even though she was evil. And you will probably be the first one to find out how this ends out when I do finish it.

Soraya - Thank you for your comments about my dad. It's been tough, sometimes a lot more than others. I miss him a lot. I definitely will continue this story and beyond. My problem has mostly been with finishing this chapter (this is the third chapter composed of just one chapter and I still am not done with the chapter). This story takes place in the future. The least I could do was get it up to modern times. I can't predict what people will be doing fourteen years from now, but I sure can at least try to make it feel like it took place later than the 90s. It's fun making up twitter IDs for characters. I considered actually making the accounts, but I doubt I would do a lot with them, especially with Arielle's temp account. I still might try it sometime, but who knows.

If anyone is keeping track of the timer, Andy has a maximum of five and a half hours left. And Scott Nielson, who is connected to Josias' various charges, has about the same amount of time, probably a little less. The clock is ticking and there still is so much they don't know. Think they can manage to figure this out in time?

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three – Paint Brushes and Candles

10:27 AM (1:27 PM in Duxbury)

Dragging his eyes away from the strange mode of transportation, Sam turned to look at his mother. "Where is it, though?" He'd grown up knowing that this woman, his mother, had most likely given her life protecting him, and he'd grown up knowing only what little Dave could remember about their father, because Kirkland had known almost nothing. Now, he had the chance, no matter how small, to get to know both of them a little. He wanted to see his father soon, and that meant finding his tombstone, something he'd never been able to do before.

Rebecca stopped her steps and looked at her youngest child. "Don't you know?"

He shook his head. "No, Mama. I've never seen Papa's grave." He's tried on more than one occasion to find it, but he'd never been successful.

Rebecca sighed and, without stopping to explain, she began to chant, "Take that which is hidden, bring it near. As we have bidden, visions clear."

All around them things changed. Trees withered and died. Healthy green grass turned first to brown and then to dirt. A small stone path lead out in front of them, stopping at a rickety wooden fence. There was a gate, but it was open. And inside . . . inside stones appeared and wooden crosses, markers.

"This has been here all along?" Dave asked in wonder.

"Why was it hidden?" Sam wanted desperately to know.

A sad look crossed her face as she faced her sons. "It started because Elisa tried ruin one of the graves. 'Twas a boy she used to play with and apparently she blamed him for dying and thought ruining his grave would make him want to 'wake up' or so she claimed."

"Excuse me," Paige interrupted. When everyone looked at her, she said, "I hate to do this, but we really have to keep going. Every minute is more dead."

Arielle gulped and nodded. "More chances that Mother could become infected," she whispered.

"You're mother is mortal?" Cilly asked.

Arielle nodded. "Dad is the witch of the two."

"Cilly?"

Cilly heaved in a deep breath. "Later, we'll talk."

Arielle shook her head. "I do not think that will be happening. My sister wishes anonymity and if I can, I intend to give it to her."

Deciding to ignore them, Paige looked over at Rebecca.

In response Rebecca looked down at the grave at her feet and got down on her knees. "Sorry. On my way back to town I came across the Richmonds preparing for their sacrifice. Me it seems." She looked up at them and asked, "We're going to need some supplies if we are going to make this work. A broom and candles, thirteen of them. Art thou able to get these?"

"Candles," Paige mumbled, sounding amused. "Of course candles." She disappeared in the same manner that her son had.

Shaking his head, Sam looked over at his mom.

Arielle was standing next to her, digging into her pocket. To his surprise, she pulled a small paintbrush out of her pocket. "Will a paintbrush do in place of a broom?"

Rebecca looked at the paintbrush and smiled. "Yes, I do believe that will do. 'Twill be a bit more time consuming, but it should still work."

"I could go home and see if we have a broom somewhere in out house," Cilly offered. "I'm not sure we do, but it's possible."

"Why wouldn't you have a broom at your home?" Rebecca asked.

Cilly wrinkled her nose. "We have more efficient ways to clean."

"There are more important uses for brooms," Rebecca assured her. "The broom is used to sweep evil from your path."

"I can do that," Arielle announced as she got on her knees next to Rebecca. "Where do I start? Dad says that there is a way of magic and we must do it properly or not at all."

"And is he right," Rebecca told her with a smile. "There are times when doing anything even doing it wrong is better then doing nothing, but it is very likely that it not only won't work, but it will cause problems or its own. Do you know which way is east?"

"Huh?" Arielle looked around at the forest surrounding them. "I am not sure."

Sam looked up through the trees at the sky. The sun was pretty high up in the sky which definitely didn't help much. "'Tis midday, isn't it?"

Arielle considered the sky, but didn't say anything at first. "The hotel was that way," she told them as she pointed away from them. "And if I remember right, the forest is east of town, so that means east is that way."

"Very well," Rebecca said. "I will need you to start sweeping on that side of the grave and sweep toward the west. Never sweep back, just east to west. Pick up your broom and start, again."

"I can do that," Arielle repeated as she began to do what Rebecca had directed her to do.

A sound behind him, had Sam looking around to see Paige reappearing with a brown bag made out of something that looked like paper in her arms.

"I've got candles," Paige announced as she put the bag down. "Where do you want them?"

"Eeee!"

They looked back at Arielle who was staring at the brush in her hand. "It is sparking."

"'Tis what is supposed to happen," Rebecca told her with a smile. "It is sweeping away the evil. That means that your paint brush works in place of a broom."

"Oh, good." Arielle tentatively swept at the ground, again. "I was a little concerned that the sparking meant I messed it all up."

"You did just fine," Rebecca assured her. "Now, Paige, if you would put those in a circle around the grave, we can begin."

Paige got to work putting the candles into a circle. Cilly and Arielle helped her and quickly the candles were set up. That's when Paige pulled out what looked like a strange, red gun and started shooting fire out of it at the candles, lighting their wicks. Sam found himself watching, fascinated.

Once all the candles where lit Rebecca stood and walked over to stand in front of her husband's tombstone, outside the circle of candles. "Everyone stand in a circle, including you Arielle."

Arielle looked at her in surprised. "Why specify me?"

"You are the only one here who is not related to my Patrick," Rebecca reminded her. "Which is why I want you to cast the spell."

"Mother?" Dave asked, sounding confused as he stopped walking to his place near the grave and looked at her. "Won't that weaken the magic?"

Rebecca smiled. "Not in this case. I believe that the spell that prevents me from reaching him is sealed with my blood, mine and Caroline's, so having someone who is not of our blood is likely to work better instead of worse."

"Come on Davie, let's find Papa," Caroline grabbed his hand and looked up at him with a smile.

Davie grinned down at his little sister. "I think I like that plan."

With her older two children occupied Rebecca turned her attention to Arielle and asked. "Do you know the spell to summon a spirit?"

Arielle nodded. "Shall we begin?" she asked as everyone found their place in the circle. When no one responded she began to chant. "Hear these words, hear my cry, spirit from the other side. Come to us, we summon Thee, cross now the Great Divide. Beloved spirit, Patrick, we seek your guidance, we ask that you commune with us and move among us."

Wind rushed around them, pulling their attention to and fro. It blew around in a circle, putting out the candles one by one until all thirteen had been extinguished.

"Hello, my love."

* * *

I bet you can guess who that is. What do you think he has to say to them?


	25. Simon Says

A water bottle diet? Seriously what was Henry's boss thinking? Find out in "Simon Says."

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Four - Simon Says

10:29 AM

Hank pushed open the doors into the office where his dad and the other parole officers worked. The first thing he noticed was that despite the rest of the building being nearly empty, this room was nearly full. He'd known that. His dad had told him that very few people had gotten sick, but knowing and seeing were two different things.

Behind him, Alanna's eyes widened as she too took in the room.

"Did you need something?" a wary eyed officer asked them.

Hank gulped. It sounded like they had been busy despite the fact that a lot of people where in the hospitals or at least staying home.

"We're just looking for our dad," Alanna told them. "Henry Mitchell. Is he around?"

The officer's eyes brightened at that. "Yeah, Henry's in the boss' office, but I'm sure he can be with you in a bit. They've been in there for a while, so I'm sure they will be out soon."

"Dad'll want to see us," Alanna insisted. "Think we can go over there and knock on the glass, see if he can come out or if we can come in?"

The officer frowned. Finally, he shrugged. "Nothing's normal these days. I guess no one's going to really protest that one."

"Thanks!" she grinned at him and hurried toward the office.

Hank shrugged and offered the officer an apologetic look. "That's my big sister for you," he grinned. "Thanks." He followed his sister across the office to where the glass walled office of their dad's boss stood. Her stopped next to Alanna who had already caught the attention of the one occupant of the room they didn't know. He recognized him only vaguely as his dad's new boss. The man had been with the department for all of three years, but considering the tenure of some of the other officers there, they was short enough to be considered new.

* * *

"Are these yours, Henry?" Henry's boss, Deputy Chief Simon Richmond, asked him as the two teens filed into the room.

"My older daughter, Alanna," Henry told him, "and my son, Hank." He indicated each in turn. "This is my boss, Deputy Chief Richmond."

"Simon, please," he told them as he stood to shake their hands. "I make your dad and the men under me call me by my title, but their families are off the hook for that."

"Hello, Sir," the teens said in unison. Alanna smothered a giggle.

"Such polite children," Simon commented.

Henry gave them speculative looks. "I'm not sure when that happened. Although Alanna gives me hope that my kids are in their somewhere."

"If you're not careful, kids will grow up while you're not looking." There was a look of regret in his eyes as he said that.

"Yes," Henry agreed with little feeling, "but since yesterday? It hardly seems likely."

"True," his boss chuckled. "So what brings you children here? Everything okay at home?"

"Hardly," Alanna retorted, sparing a thought for her mother who was barely keeping everyone busy and probably trying not to think about what would happen if they failed. She thought about her cousins, who one way or another were all in danger of losing one or both parents. She thought of all the people she knew who were sick and everyone who had already died. No, nothing was okay.

"Nothing new though," Hank was quick to assure his dad as a a look of worry flooded Henry's face.

"Andy's still hanging on?" Henry asked. He'd only met Andy a few times over the last three months, but it had been nice to have some one else in law enforcement to talk to when visiting with Paige's new sister. And he knew how important this man was to all three of Paige's sisters.

"Last we heard," was all Hank could offer.

"Mom would let us know if Aunt Prue called," Alanna announced confidently.

"Who's Andy?" Simon asked him, more than curiosity glinting in his eyes. Something else shimmered there. Something rather like hope.

It was Alanna who answered and she didn't notice anything up. "Our uncle. He's stage five."

Simon gulped. "I'm sorry to hear that." He looked a little green.

"Everyone's sorry," Alanna retorted, feeling annoyed at the oft repeated words. Sorry helped no one. "Everyone's sorry, but no one does anything. No one knows how to fix it." Sarcasm dripped in her voice as she asked, "Do you?"

"I might," was the soft reply.

"Huh?" Hank stared at him dumbfounded.

"You _might_?" Alanna repeated dumbly before catching herself and asked, "Then, why haven't you told anyone?"

"I did," he informed her, his face relaxing visibly. Decades seemed to ease off his face with those two works, making Alanna wonder how old he was. "I did," he repeated, "but she couldn't fix it, only delay it."

A thousand questions ran through her head. When had this been delayed? She couldn't help but think of James Bowen's insistence that the last time this had happened had been in 1897 or Josias' assurance that this had happened first in 1637. Delayed when? Could he possibly mean 1897 or even farther back. It mattered little enough compared to another question. "So why not tell someone else?"

There was silence for several seconds before he finally answered. "My cousin made it rather difficult for me."

"You're afraid of your cousin?" she asked in disbelief. This was no time to be afraid.

"A little," he admitted, "but that's not why."

"Why don't you just explain?" she demanded, frustrated.

"Because you're not asking the right questions," he shot back, just as frustrated.

"If you know the answers, why does it matter?" she asked confused and more than a little annoyed.

His face distorted into something like disgust. "Because on this topic, I can only answer the questions you ask."

Realization flooded Hank and in a calm voice he cut into the conversation. "Your cousin's a witch?"

"Not in the least," came the reply, but there was relief in the voice. "She's a warlock."

Hank raised his eyebrows in surprise, thought he didn't know why it surprised him. It made sense. "She cast some sort of spell on you?" He suspected he even knew what kind of spell that was, too.

Henry's boss nodded. "And on my sister, yes."

"Your sister?" Alanna felt as if the conversation had just veered into some unknown direction.

He nodded. "My sister and I are twins. Our mother was expecting us when this all started. She found out about our father's involvement and she ran."

"Your father was involved?" Hank's eyes widened. He glanced over at his own father, mystified. He couldn't imagine being at odds with his dad to the degree he suspected this man was with his father.

"William Richmond was to my mother's estimation the best of Willamina Richmond's children," he told them. "He had his faults, but nothing that bothered my mother so much that is gave her pause about marrying him. Well, nothing beyond the fact that he was Elisa Richmond's older brother. That would give almost anyone pause."

Hank dug into his pocket and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He then proceeded to ignored them all.

"Elisa?" Alanna looked at him confused. "Why is that?"

Simon gave her a rather sad look. "Aunt Elisa is the kind of person who would kick an injured puppy to amuse herself when the puppy squealed. She was never a particularly kind person even in pretend. Mother once told me that she believe Elisa set up a man to die because he rejected her advanced."

Alanna shuttered. "Why do you . . ?"

"Wait," Hank interrupted. He pushed the notepad in front of Simon. "Does this look familiar?"

Simon took the notepad and read what was written on it. "Familiar, but not quite right."

"How do I correct it?" Hank asked. Hours spent leaning spells he could no longer cast with his Aunt Phoebe had taught him that every word counted.

Simon frowned and thought back two hundred and sixty years to when the spell had first been cast on him.

* * *

_"You call yourself a Richmond," Hannah Talmont spat out as she glared at Simon. "You are a disgrace to the family name."_

_"I think not," Simon told her. "Our grandfather is highly disappointed in the lot of you and it's his line where the name Richmond comes from."_

_Hannah rolled her eyes at him. "Fine. You're not a disgrace to the weak name of Richmond. You're a disgrace to the proud Black line of warlocks."_

_"No such think," Simon informed her. "There's nairy a Black that turned warlock until our grandmother and she's not a Black anymore."_

_"You are impossible," Hannah scowled at him._

_"I'll take that as a compliment."_

_"Well, it's not," she snapped back. "I'm not letting you ruin this."_

* * *

That's when she had cast the spell that had changed his life forever. Looking back at the spell Hank had written on the page, Simon grabbed the offered pen and started crossing some things off and adding other things. Less than a minute later he handed the spell back to Hank. "I don't know how this helps, but this is it."

Hank took back the notepad and pen and asked, "And what is the name of the person who cast this?"

"Hannah," he said at once. "It was Talmont at the time, but I think she's married, again. Thirteen witches cast a spell to turn fifteen witches into warlocks and kill off the nonmagical world. There are a great deal more of us now."

Hank gulped, but said nothing as he went back to his writing.

"How is it you can tell me that?" Alanna asked. "Without being directly asked, I mean?"

"I guess it doesn't help fix this to know who cast the original spell or why?" His look was grim as he added, "I wasn't there and neither was my mother, so I know little enough of what happened there. My mother was quite certain that Rebecca Warren was the one killed for the sacrifice because she was Patrick Warren's wife."

Hank looked at his sister surprise. "Patrick Warren. Remember he was in the entry in the Book I read."

Simon's eyes widened in surprise. "Your Book of Shadows has something about this in it?"

Hank shook his head. "Just something about Patrick Warren."

"What on earth for?" Simon asked confused. "Patrick Warren has little enough significance even in this . . ."

"Except perhaps to his granddaughter," Hank suggested.

"Granddaughter?" Simon laughed a little. "I hardly think you are Patrick's granddaughter."

"No," Hank agreed, "but Melinda Warren was and she's the one who started our Book of Shadows." He handed the notepad to Alanna. "Cast this, would you?"

Alanna looked down at it. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "It should work."

Alanna looked at Simon. "Is that okay with you?"

Simon shrugged. "It can't make things worse, but why doesn't he cast it, himself?"

"I can't," Hank admitted with a little difficulty. "I lost the ability to cast spells almost three months ago."

Simon winced. "Do you know how?"

"I have my suspicions," Hank admitted, "but I'd prefer not to discuss them."

"Fair enough," Simon agreed. "Cast away, Miss Mitchell."

Alanna inhaled and slowly read the spell on the paper in her hands. "Words stolen by Hannah's spell, allow them flow easy and well. Gifted the chance to confess what thou will without querying pass."

"Anything?" Hank looked at him questioningly.

"Two years before Hannah cast the spell on me, which was in 1767 if you are interested, I learned from a witch living in Duxbury who was on her deathbed that her ancestor had cast a spell one-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior to stop the spread of the curse."

"One-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior," Hank repeated. "That would be when this started, right?"

Simon nodded. "About six months prior to my birth and that of my sister."

"So that makes you three-hundred-and-eighty-nine-years-old," Alanna looked at him in awe.

"And six months," Simon agreed. "Suzannah Williams told me the spell her ancestor had written to stop the curse and of the terrible consequences of using it."

Alanna looked at him apprehensively. "What happened?"

"Any one affected by it whether they showed symptoms or not, died instantly," Simon told them with a shiver. "There was one family where all three children survived. And do you know why those three children survived when their parents did not and when most families either all survived or all perished?"

The two Mitchell kids shook their heads.

"Their parents had been watching David Warren, so when Samuel appeared alone in the middle of town and then Elizabeth found Rebecca and Caroline's bodies, their parents sent the children away from town to someplace they believed safe. I know not where. Where ever it was they returned a week later with the two Warren boys alive, but orphaned. As best they could tell those who survived had not needed to draw water or in one case an illness in the family had kept everyone in the house."

"We know that it comes from the water," Hank told him. "Or at least we had a pretty good idea of it. What was done to the water?"

Simon sighed. "I'm not sure. As I said, I wasn't there."

"And no one that was will talk to us," Alanna scowled.

"Not entirely true," Hank commented. "I just got to meet Rebecca Warren and her three children. She's talking to our mom right now."

"Where is your mom?" Henry asked, concerned.

"In Duxbury. The young woman who was behind the twitter account warning people off of the water had apparently asked her to come so they could talk." He grimaced. "It didn't go so well. They got into a fight with a woman. I believe Rebecca mentioned the name Elisa. You mentioned her, too, didn't you?"

Simon nodded, looking at him concerned. "Elisa attacked them? Then, they are lucky to be alive. My aunt is not held back by any scruples."

"Well, she has no head now, but she did a lot of damage," Hank told him. "How close were you?"

Simon shook his head. "Oh, I didn't know her. We never even met. I just have heard about her. My cousin, Charles, contacted me a few decades ago and she came up in conversation and my sister, Rachel, has attempted to form some sort of relationship a time or two. She hates Elisa, something about Elisa killing Rachel's soul mate . . . twice."

"They don't get along then?"

"My family?" He let out a small laugh. "No, they hate each other. There is no room for love where evil abounds. Rumor has it that my grandmother murdered her husband in cold blood and Charles told me that his mother killed his father. It's the reason he doesn't have any contact with her, hasn't since he was a young man. Hannah and Deb work well together, but don't confuse that for affection let alone love. And their father's insane, almost as much as Elisa. He's very dangerous. Aunt Marie is obsessed with her son, Oliver, but I think she forgets she has two daughters as well. Of course Miriam and Jessica are no less obsessed with him. Jessica hero worships him and Miriam sees it as her job protect him no matter what. I've never met most of them and I'm not interested in changing that."

"And your father?"

He shrugged. "I really wouldn't know. I've never met him."

That had both teens looking at him with wide eyes.

"You've never met your dad?"

"My _father_ never saw the point in coming to see me," Simon informed him. "Even Rachel came to see me a few times over the last four centuries, but never him. Sarah and I are better off without him anyway."

"Sarah?"

"My twin sister." He smiled with genuine affection at that. "Ma raised the two of us on her own. We didn't even know anything about our father for decades. Well, almost nothing. She did tells us that his name was William Richmond and that he wasn't a good person, but we didn't know about magic or why Ma thought he was a bad person. Although, I'm not really sure Ma knew much about magic in the first place, so that may have been why she didn't tell us." He touched his finger to his desk it started trembling, not much. "Finding that was a bit of a shock. It works a whole lot better if I touch the ground directly."

"You can cause earthquakes?" Alanna gaped at him. "That's pretty impressive."

"Not really," he corrected her. "It's not my power. I guess when that cast that spell and killed your ancestor, it was supposed to part her with her powers as well, but something funny happened. She kept them and the redistribution of her powers and those of her daughter that was supposed to go to one of my less than likable relatives went to Sarah and myself. Sarah controls the wind, something we have learned Caroline Warren could do."

"She could control the wind?"

Simon was still for a moment. "Sometimes. Since these aren't our powers and they were gotten by rather strange means and they are literally still held by the real owners, it's an iffy thing. If they ever moved on, I think we'd have full control of them, but it's just as likely that we would simply lose them all together."

"What do you mean, if they moved on?"

"Well, they haven't," Hank informed his older sister. "I met both of them when I was helping mom."

"But how does this help us?" Alanna asked, ignoring her brother. "How can we end this, actually end it, not postpone it?"

"All I know for sure is that certain numbers have more power in them and thirteen's pretty hard to beat." He held up a finger and shook his head. "No, actually, I might have something else." He slowly began to wave his hand in a clockwise circle over his desk. "Protect these words. Keep them true. Protect these lives. Keep them safe."

Hank looked over at his sister, clearly confused.

Simon smiled. "Trust me, it's a real spell." He opened the top drawer of his desk and started looking through the papers. After a minute, he came up with what he wanted and pulled it out. Upon confirming that it actually still had the words he expected to see on it, he held it out to Alanna. "Take this. I believe it will be of more use to then I am."

Alanna took the paper from him and looked at it. As she read it, her eyes began to widen. "But this . . . I thought there was nothing written left."

Simon grinned. "I may not know them very personally, but I know my family very well. After nearly four hundred years, I'd better. I started casting spells on everything I wrote after the first time I met Uncle George. He doesn't believe in reading."

"Doesn't believe in it?"

He shook his head. "No. I mean that in the sense that he believes it should be banned and not in the sense that he doesn't believe it is possible or that he doesn't on a rare occasion read. I'm afraid I never had very much written about this, but I wrote that after my conversation with Suzannah and it is possible that something there may be of use. She told me a lot. I don't know if she knew how to stop this, but she believed she did. She couldn't do it, but you're Rebecca Warren's descendants. Her blood flows through you. I think you and your family are the best chance at fixing this. It began when my family killed yours. It will end between our families as well. I don't know the details, but Rachel once told me that the day before this started our father had a premonition of just how this will end. He knows. I doubt he'll share it with you, but he does know how this will end. Maybe between what Suzannah told me and that you can find out, too."

He could see the wheels working in the siblings eyes and he smiled. For the first time in a long time, he didn't feel panic gripping him at the thought of what his father and the rest of his family did all those years ago. This time he felt hope.

* * *

If you are trying to read the new chapters, the next one to read is chapter twenty-six. Other wise, enjoy chapter twenty-five.


	26. The Weak Link

Because I really want to give you more since it's been so long, I'm not going to wait for reviews, so here is the next chapter. Thank you for reading and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Weak Link

10:33 AM (1:33 PM in Duxbury)

The deep voice caused everyone to start and spin around or look up passed the circle, everyone except Rebecca. A smile curved her lips as she turned around to greet her husband. "Patrick."

"I cannot stay long," he warned her, his ghostly eyes appearing not to see anyone except his wife, not even his three children. "Although you have weakened it, the spell around this place and around you will not allow me to remain more than a few minutes."

"Papa?"

Sam's query caught his father's attention. "Samuel?"

Arielle felt like laughing at the pleased look on Sam's face.

"I hate to do this," Paige interrupted, "but more people are getting affected every minute and more people are dying all the time. We'll figure out how to get you two back together after we stop this. Do you know what's going on?"

Patrick's expression turned solemn as he looked at her and nodded.

"Can you tell us anything useful? How to stop this? How this started?"

He was silent for several moments and then nodded. "Perhaps. After my death, I could not contact my wife in anyway and although I could move on, I feared what Elisa would do next, so I followed her."

"That sounds creepy," Cilly commented. "She didn't strike me as very sane."

Patrick shook his head. "No, I would not say that she was. I had to keep a distance since her spell only prevented my family from seeing me. It did not prevent other witches from seeing me and they most definitely were witches."

* * *

_"No! Absolutely not!"_

_Patrick saw Elisa frown as she approached the clearing. Apparently even she was affected by the fury and vehemence in her older brother's voice. He wondered what had angered William Richmond. _

_"I will not participate in this, Mother," William snarled._

_Since he knew where Elisa was going and didn't need to watch her very closely at the moment, Patrick moved on ahead of Elisa. There was something nice about being able to move through matter, but he would have gladly given it up to be alive, again, to be with his wife and sons._

_The first thing he saw when he entered the clearing was a rickety old house, one he hadn't seen before despite having been around much of the forest. Perhaps, he simply hadn't been around enough, but surely no one had lived here in Duxbury long enough to have abandoned a house that long._

_The second thing he saw was William, furiously glaring at his mother "Goodwoman" Richmond. How could he miss William, when it was William he sought?_

_But his eyes didn't stay on William for more than a moment, for the third thing he saw, the thing he realized was causing William's anger, was a body, a tiny body dressed in a dress made of familiar cloth. Knowing they could see him, he couldn't get too close, but a horrible thought flooded him as he stared at the dress. It wasn't possible. It simply wasn't possible._

"_That child is barely older than Rachel. She can't be older than Deborah or Jessica at the very most." William looked across clearing at his younger brother, George. "George, doest thou really wish to involve your daughters in this?" His eyes caught those of his older sister, Goody Michaels. "Doest thou really mean to use your children for this?"_

"_I want immortality, William," Goody Michaels snapped at him. "This will give us that. And it will give our children that as well. Thou should think on that, brother."_

_William shook his head. "No. No, this crosses the line, Marie. I will not participating in this. I will not involve myself in a ceremony that sacrifices the blood of babies and that forces babies to involve themselves."_

_Patrick was a little stunned when William turned around and headed toward town, toward Patrick._

"_Stop!" Goody Richmond yelled. "Come back here."_

_Stopping, William turned around and looked at his mother. "I said no." Only half of his face was visible to Patrick with the way he was standing, but it was pretty clear that he was furious. "I'm out of this. If this is what you want, then forget it, Mother. I don't care how much you think you need her, Rachel is just a baby. You are not using my daughter in this."_

"_We need her," his mother informed him, a cold steel threading through her voice. She softened her tone as she added, "She needs only repeat a few words, but we won't have enough people to cast this spell without her."_

"_Says Marie." William glared at his sister._

"_Says me," Goody Richmond snarled, drawing his attention back to her. "There is more power in spells cast in certain numbers. Without her there are only twelve of us. Without you it drops down to eleven. We need thirteen to make this work."_

"_I don't think you get it," William snapped. "I. Saw. Us. Die. Cast a smaller spell. My daughter won't be involved in this."_

_Patrick wondered what had actually happened in this vision of Williams. Death was not something to be courted, but it didn't usually create this reaction. And if immortality was what they sought, then how was the seeking of it going to get them killed?_

"'_Tis such a shame," his mother scoffed. "Thou thinks this a game."_

"_I know 'tis not a game, mother," William reminded her, "but I don't want my daughter involved. I won't let her be the victim of what I saw."_

"_Do please be still," his mother growled at him. "Just heed my will."_

_Patrick blinked in surprise. If he wasn't mistaken, she was casting a spell on her son and he didn't even notice it._

"_Mother?" William asked confused. He may not have noticed it, but her words made no sense to him._

"_Allow me to be heard," Goody Richmond continued, "and lend us Rachel's word."_

"_Of course, Mother," William agreed, his voice suddenly calm and relaxed. "I will need to get her."_

"_No need," his mother assured him as she looked toward the opening to the woods. "Louisa has brought her."_

_Patrick looked toward where Goody Richmond was looking and say Goody Chambers entering the clearing with her young son, Charles._

_Holding on to Charles' hand was little Rachel Richmond. She was sucking on her thumb and looking up at her cousin._

_As they entered the clearing Charles looked at his mother confused. "Ma, why is there a girl lying on that table?"_

_Goody Chambers smiled down at her son. "Never you mind that, Charles. We have a very special spell to cast and I want you to do something for me."_

"_Rachel," William called to his daughter. "Come here."_

_The little girl dropped Charles' hand and ran to her father. "Papa, Mama sick." She slapped her hands to her chest and made a gagging face followed by a couple of very fake coughs._

_A giggle from Goody Michaels' oldest, Miriam, caught a glare from Rachel who wrapped her arms around William and waited to be picked up._

"_Sick," Rachel repeated once she was up in William's arms._

"_Enough of that," Goody Richmond called as she approached Miriam. "Miriam, be a dear and hold these for your mother."_

"_Yes, Grandmama," Miriam looked down at the basket Goody Richmond held out to her. "Flowers, Grandmama?"_

"_For the ceremony. You're mother explained it to you?"_

_The girl nodded quickly. "Oliver, Jessica, and I want to help."_

"_Very good."_

_As Goody Richmond busied herself and her offspring with various tasks, Patrick carefully made his way around the edge of the clearing, trying get a better view of the girl on the alter. There was little doubt in his mind what he would find if he could get close enough, but that little doubt was enough to keep him moving._

_He didn't know how long he tried, but nothing seemed to work. When everything in the clearing seemed to still and tension suddenly rose to the point where he noticed it, he began to fill with his own apprehension._

"'_Tis time to begin," Goody Richmond announced to her children. "She has arrived on her own."_

_The breath Patrick no longer had tugged at his chest as he realized exactly what she meant. He didn't have to look to know she was there, but look he did and his heart plummeted. Not only was his Rebecca there, but in her arms was their defenseless baby son._

_Rebecca clearly understood there was danger, for she started to move away. She didn't get far before she fell to the ground causing him to desperately wish to aid her, but he had no idea how. He was a ghost. She couldn't see him and he couldn't even . . ._

"_I wouldn't if I were you."_

_Patrick groaned and turned around. Goody Richmond's oldest daughter, Goody Michaels stood there licking her lips._

"_My sister's going to slice your wife up and there's nothing you can or will do about it."_

"_And my daughter? Why is her body here?"_

"_Oh, you like that?" She looked disgustingly pleased about that._

_Until that moment there had been some doubt, but her words erased it. Why would anyone get a body from under the sea just to do this?_

"_Do you have any idea how many bodies there are buried at sea, both on purpose and because of shipwrecks. I was unsure if I was going to find the right body. Really, this is better. She'll get a proper burial this way. Burials at sea are so uncivilized."_

"_Marie, now is not the time," Goody Richmond called to her daughter._

"_Stay out of sight," Goody Michaels ordered him. "I can't vanquish you. Only a ghost can vanquish a ghost, so this will have to do." She heaved in a breath and chanted, "Lock this ghost up tight. Keep him from aiding her plight. 'Til our victim's found. Keep him tightly bound."_

_Instantly he felt magical binds close in around him. He was helpless as a few minutes later Goody Michaels' four younger siblings returned with his wife. And if he thought he saw Elisa enjoying this a little more than was even normal for someone like her or if he thought he saw William cringe every so often, there was naught he could do. He could no more save William from the fate his mother had chosen for him, from the life of evil he was clearly destined for, then he could save his darling Rebecca from any of them._

_The night passed in silence, seeming as if it was never going to end. Morning came and went and then someone screamed._

_He would have done anything to have saved the girl from finding their bodies. The Kensington's older daughter, Elizabeth, didn't stop screaming until she was safely in the arms of her father, but it wasn't Elizabeth who caught his attention. It wasn't her father either. It was the other man who entered the clearing with Goodman Kensington that caught his attention._

_Kirkland Owens sent the Kensingtons back and said he'd guard the bodies. The moment they were out of sight he walked straight over to Patrick, his eyes narrow. "'Tis not a normal death thou's wife suffered here. What happened, Patrick Warren? Who are thou and thou's family and what hast thou brought on us?"_

"_Thou has it all wrong," Patrick glared at him. "This was not my doing. In case you were absent, I'm dead. The town hung me for a crime I did not commit, but thou refuses to listen."_

"_I am not a simpleton, Goodman Warren," Goodman Owens assured him. "I know thou didn't hurt thou's wife, but this is no simple murder. 'Tis a witch's alter. What happened here? Who are thou?"_

"_I am a simple man," Patrick began to protest, before stopping. "This doesn't matter. I am as normal a man as I thought thou to be, but clearly thou art more than a normal man. I suppose like my wife and those who did this to her, thou art a witch."_

_He did not let Goodman Owens answer as the words of the night before registered. "They did something to the water! You have to warn people. They did something. They used my wife and daughter's lifeblood to do something to the water, to curse it."_

_Annoyance and suspicion turned to fear. "Who did something? Who did this? And why?"_

"_I don't know why, but they poisoned the water for mortals to drink. You have to warn them."_

"_Who? Who did this?"_

"_The Richmonds. Didn't I already say that?"_

"_You didn't," Goodman Owens denied as horror covered his face. He swore before breathing the one name Patrick dreaded above all others. "Elisa Richmond. She was handing out water to those searching for your wife to drink. We should have known something was up when the little creature was being kind to us. She is never kind."_

_Patrick felt his heart drop. That meant … but he couldn't even contemplate the results that might invoke. Before he could say anything else Goodman Owens ran off leaving him to wonder what would happen next._

_He returned some time later with his head drooping. "What do I do about this? How can I stop this?"_

_There was no response that seemed to work._

"_What doest thou remember of what they did? Perhaps something they did can help?"_

* * *

Had it helped? Patrick didn't know. He only knew that half of the village had died.

"William didn't want his daughter involved. I'm not sure he wanted any of the children involved, but definitely not his daughter. She was only two at the time and he was pretty furious when his mother suggested it."

"William did not seem to have a problem involving himself," Rebecca protested. "He helped trap me. And his daughter was there. If he was so furious that his mother wished her there, then why did he allow that?"

"He didn't," Patrick looked down at his little daughter. "He even tried to leave entirely, but his mother cast a spell on him. She wanted her thirteen witches and she wasn't letting her son's conscious steal that from her. He's your weak link. I don't know if that information is of any use to you especially since all the time that has passed has likely changed him entirely, but he's definitely your weak link. Chip at it if you get the chance."

* * *

Patrick is unable to stay much beyond this. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Ready to find out what is going on with Henry's boss? Why did he tell everyone in his department to use water bottles? What does he know? And why doesn't he share what he knows? Or was it just a coincidence? Let me know what you think is going to happen next.


	27. Brothers and Other Emotions

Thanks to everyone who is reading this story. I am posting four new chapters. Two of them actually went prior to chapters I had already posted, so I am rearranging the order of chapters. If you want to read them first they are chapters 21 (Worth It) and 24 (Simon Says). The chapter after this one is also new and I should have the order correct after this.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Six - Brothers and Other Emotions

10:37 AM (12:37 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug opened her eyes and moaned. Her entire body ached. She tried to stretch and found she couldn't move.

"You're awake," a lyrical voice pronounced before demanding, "All right, who are you and why are you here?"

Ladybug shook her head and scrapped her teeth across her bottom lip. "Untie me first."

"Uh uh," the voice returned. Ladybug had yet to see anyone. "My house, my rules. Now, who are you?"

"It's not my fault I'm in your house," Ladybug huffed. "I was going to knock. As I recall, I didn't get off the sidewalk. So how'd I get her . . . and why?"

She heard a deep breath followed by what sounded like the snort of an angry bull's nose.

Ladybug sighed. "My cousin found a blog you wrote about what's going on. I was chosen to see if you could help us."

"I can't," the voice returned quickly, too quickly. "I'm sorry about your father, mother, brother, sister, whomever, but I can't help you."

"Uncles," Ladybug replied, "two of them. But it's more then just them. Pretty soon the whole world's going to be effected by this. If it's not stopped, everyone will die."

"There's nothing I can do about that," the voice informed her.

"My aunt is determined to end this tonight," Ladybug told her, "even if it kills my uncles."

"Well, she can't end it," the voice said right in front of Ladybug's face. "No one can."

Still unable to see anyone, Ladybug's frown grew. "It's been stopped before. It can be, again."

"It's never been stopped," snarled the voice, still managing to sound like music. "It's only been pushed forward again and again. That's not stopping anything.

"If you know how to stop this, please, help me," Ladybug pleaded.

"The books are gone," the voice told her as a person appeared in front of her. "And I wouldn't tell you that spell even if I knew it."

"I don't mean to sound harsh, but whoever they are, they are going to die anyway, and maybe the spell you say you don't know holds the key to the spell to stop this."

The young woman started pacing in front of Ladybug. "This spell was cast by a minimum of thirteen evil witches."

"A minimum?"

"The wife of one of the witches was pregnant," the woman replied. "My ancestors said she later had twins, and if she was there, that makes fifteen. Thirteen's more likely, but it's something you'll need to know."

"Unborn babies can't say spells," Ladybug protested.

"Nonmagical mothers and those who cannot themselves be part of a specific spell can help cast those spells if the child within them is qualified to cast the spell," the young woman informed Ladybug with a musical snap.

Ladybug didn't answer. She glared up at the woman. "Would you untie me already. I'm not going to harm you."

The young woman glared at her and left the room.

Not sure if that was a good thing or not, Ladybug looked around the room. There was nothing that really caught her attention. It was a little dark other than a light by the piano on the other side of the room, but that didn't mean much, so she started trying to escape her bonds.

"I'll get that for you," the young woman told her as she reentered the room. In her hands was a jagged edged knife. "Unfortunately, I'm a little too good at knots. I never can untie them. Kirk calls it my fatal flaw."

"Kirk?"

"My brother," she admitted as she got behind Ladybug and started sawing away at the knot. "Do you have any?"

"Brothers?" She shook her head. "Not really."

"How do you 'not really' have any brothers?"

"Well, my mom miscarried during her first marriage and that was my brother."

"You sound heartbroken," the woman retorted.

Ladybug pulled her hands around in front of her and rubbed her wrists. "I wasn't born. If he was alive, he'd be around my cousin, Wyatt's, age. He's six years older than me. Sure I would have liked a brother, but I don't have one."

"It still seems pretty cold."

Letting her breath hiss between her teeth, she turned around to look at her former captor. "I don't have a brother. I refuse to accept that I am the sister to the Source of All Evil, so excuse me if I'm not sad about the death of someone I never met."

"The what?" the woman flickered her fingers and a light switched on. "You cannot be serious."

"My mom made some mistakes," Ladybug told her. "I'm not really sure how much is her fault and how much is someone else's fault, but her first husband was the Source. He wasn't born that way and I gather he didn't stay that way, because at some point or another my big brother became the Source."

"That seems impossible," the woman told her, purple eyes glaring at Ladybug. "You said your brother wasn't even born."

"Didn't stop any of it, now did it." Ladybug sighed. "Look, I don't want to talk about it. I'm a little touchy on the subject, because . . ."

"A little?"

"Okay, a lot," she conceded. "My little sister has been talking about him a lot lately and I don't know how to handle it. She's talking about him as if he was perfectly normal and even if he wasn't the Source, there's no chance of that."

"Still seems a bit extreme."

"When was the last time your brother tried to kill your aunt?"

The other woman scrunched her nose in though. "Two years ago, I think."

"Beg your pardon."

"You haven't met my aunt," she informed Ladybug. "And keep in mind, no magic, none. He wasn't serious or I don't think he was, but I do know some people who would actually try to kill her given the chance."

"Not the same."

"No, I imagine it's not, but he didn't actually kill her did he?"

"No, she's alive."

"There you have it. Perhaps we should do as you suggested and move on."

Grasping at the suggestion, Ladybug held out her hand with a smile. "I'm Ladybug."

The woman stared at her. "You cannot be serious," she repeated her earlier words.

Ladybug frowned and dropped her hand. "I thought I was."

"Not that," the woman assured her, glancing at Ladybug's hand. "Ladybug? Seriously? That's a baby name."

"At school they call me Prudence or Rudy," Ladybug told her with a shrug. "My family and friends though, they call me Ladybug."

"Well, I am neither," the woman said with a musical humph, "and I seriously doubt I can manage to hold a conversation with you without laughing if I must call you Ladybug, so Prudence or Rudy? Which do you prefer?"

Ladybug was silent. She'd never really liked the name Rudy, mostly due to whose idea it was to call her that. And Prudence was special. That was what Grandpa called her. Sure practically everyone at school did, too, but something told her she didn't want this girl to call her that.

"Fine then," the woman scowled at her. "I am Winifred. Franki for short . . . don't ask."

"Call me Ladybug," Ladybug insisted, seizing her chance, "and I'll call you Franki. Odd as people think it . . . I prefer it."

Franki's scowl deepened. "Fine."

"So . . . the spell."

"I truly don't know it," Franki insisted. "I was supposed to learn it, but I never saw the point. It was written right there after all."

"We need the spell, Franki. We've tried everything we could think of."

Franki slumped down in a chair and sighed. "Maybe one of my ancestors. They cast the spell, surely they know it."

"It's worth a shot," Ladybug tried to encourage her. "We summoned one of my ancestors, but he could only confirm that it had happened before."

"Right," Franki snorted. "That's not useful."

"It was news to us."

"Fine."

"So who is it?"

Franki gave her a strange look. "Who?"

"The person you don't want to lose to this?"

Franki signed.

"We need something to talk about while we prepare for a seance."

"Not really."

"Well, I think you need to talk."

"You think wrong," Franki assured her.

"A parent maybe," Ladybug pushed. "Only one needs magic to produce a magical child."

Franki said nothing.

"Not a sibling, I think," Ladybug continued. "Those are usually magical, too."

"Hmph."

"Maybe a close friend," Ladybug suggested. "I have a friend who's ill, only stage one, but that doesn't matter is the spell kills everyone I guess."

Still there was no response from Franki.

"Not that either then," Ladybug deduced. "It has to be someone. Not a child, surely. They'd be magical, too."

Franki squirmed.

"A husband," Ladybug looked at her, wondering if she was getting close. "No? A boyfriend then?"

"Look," Franki glared at her annoyed. "None of this is your business, but my parents have been dead for years. I'm an only child, single, no children . . . did I mentioned single? I'm a loner . . . no friends, no close friends anyway. And I wish you'd just quit being nosy and work."

Ladybug shrugged. "You don't socialize much do you?" She frowned. Hadn't Franki said she had a brother and an aunt? Looking at Franki, she decided not to push it. Franki was making it pretty clear she didn't want to talk.

"No," Franki agreed. "No point."

"Yes, there is," Ladybug mumbled under her breath. "Then you don't have conversations like this."

"I can hear you, you know."

Ladybug had the grace to grimace in embarrassment.

They walked in silence for several minutes, but by the time they reached Franki's inner sanctum, Ladybug could hold her tongue no longer. "So tell me about your ex."

_"My ex_ is dead."

"From this?" Ladybug looked at her concerned.

"No."

"Not your ex, huh?" Ladybug shook her head. "Then, who on earth is it."

"You are way too nosy."

"You can ask questioned about me," Ladybug offered. "I'll answer."

Franki was silent as she considered this. Finally, "What about your ex?"

"One in Cambridge," Ladybug told her. "The other's in the ground."

"You seem unemotional about that, too," Franki frowned.

"We 'dated' when we where six," Ladybug informed her. "I hadn't seen him since his family moved when we were eight. He died at twelve, car accident."

"You still seem rather unemotional," Franki observed.

"I'm not," Ladybug assured her. "I just can't think about my feelings right now or I'll break." Not to mention she'd already had enough emotional bursts spent on a brother she would probably prefer didn't exist in the first place. "My parents have been missing for months. My sisters need me to be strong. My uncles are dying. My cousins and aunts need me to be strong. Thousands are dead, more by the minute. I'm not the only one that can save them, but I have to do what I can. I have to do my part. And to do that, I need your help."

"I said I'd help," Franki reminded her as she began putting crystals in a circle. There was silence for several seconds and then she asked, "What happened to you parents?"

"Don't know yet," Ladybug admitted. "They went on a second honeymoon and they didn't come back."

"When was that?"

"February."

"At least you can measure it in months not years," Franki told her. "Before I was born, my parents lost a child, a son, never met him, no clue if he's alive or dead. It bites."

And the brother she'd mentioned earlier? Even though she'd already mentioned it, she said, "My mom lost a son before I was born, too. Only she knows he died."

"Bites," Franki repeated.

"Yeah."

"You ready to do this seance?"

"Let's get it over with," Ladybug agreed. "Time is far too short."

Franki put down the last crystal and began lighting the candles. "I sure hope this works."

* * *

One more new chapter after this one. Enjoy.


	28. Say Good-Bye, Wyatt

A big thank you to my reviewer:

PhoenixHalliwell13 - I admit they aren't in this story nearly as much. You do get to see Wyatt in this one and now that he's awake again, he'll be around some more. Chris is still asleep. Wyatt (and a sleeping Chris) will be in chapter twenty-nine and Chris will be awake in chapter thirty-one. Those aren't the only chapters they will be in, of course, but those are some coming up. And the next episode is _very_ centered on the two of them. It's called "A Brother's Bond" (or maybe it's "A Brothers' Bond", I keep going back and forth) and I think one or both of them is in every single chapter. I have an outline for it and I think you will enjoy it. Now that I am back to writing Charmed (I had a Charmed block for over a year) I should be able to get this one done and on to that one in a much more reasonable amount of time.

Everything is not going to go your way, especially when this many people are dead. Some of the casualties along the way are going to hurt.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Say Good-Bye, Wyatt

10:42 AM (1:42 PM in Assateague)

_The sound of a machine flat lining filled the air as a doctor rushed into the room. She glanced at the screen as a nurse entered the room after her. "I need a crash cart, stat," she ordered him._

_"But she was stage five," the confused nurse reminded her._

_"That doesn't mean we don't try," the doctor snapped. "I want that crash cart, now." As soon as he ran out of the room, she picked up the patient's chart and looked at it. Despite her words a moment earlier, in a whispered voice she said, "I'm sorry, Olivia Tunnels, that we couldn't save you."_

Wyatt's eyes snapped open in panic. "Olivia," he mumbled in a pained voice as he looked around trying to orient himself. Realizing he was in his own room at his apartment, he flung off the covers and swung his legs off the bed. He grabbed a pair of sandals off the ground and as soon as he could shove his feet into them, he orbed out toward the source of his distress.

A moment later he found himself in an empty hospital room. He looked toward the bed and say that there did appear to be a body on it, but a sheet was pulled all the way over it. He took a step towards the bed.

"Wyatt?"

He spun around and looked with stunned eyes into the equally stunned eyes of his co-worker. "Olivia."

"You just appeared," Olivia stated. "All those lights flickering around you," she waved her arm in his general direction. "How?"

"I . . . " Wyatt glanced toward the bed. "Who . . ?"

"Oh, that's me," she admitted. "They wanted me to go toward some light, but I didn't want to. It scared me."

"It's perfectly safe," Wyatt informed her.

"Oh?" she looked at him skeptically. "And how many times have you died?"

"None, that anyone's mentioned," he replied looking at her in confusion. "You're a ghost?"

"I guess," she admitted, "but you're the first one to see me. Why's that?"

"I . . ." he stared at her. "I'm a witch." It didn't really matter now. She couldn't really tell anyone.

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "Uh, uh. Wrong gender."

He shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Olivia, remember at the museum you wanted to know what I was hidden that one day when we tried to kill each other?"

Olivia shrugged.

"This," he waved his arm around," is what my family deals with on a regular basis, although usually not on this large of a scale. Still want to know what happened that day?"

She shook her head. "No really. Doesn't seem to matter anymore."

"Yeah," he agreed. "No kidding."

"What's on the other side of the light?" she wanted to know.

"People who've died," he told her. "You'll be able to find people you know. It's safe I promise."

She sighed.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

"What could you have done?" she asked surprised.

"Found a cure sooner."

"Found one yet?" she asked skeptically.

"Not that I know of," he admitted.

"When you find one," she began hesitantly. "Help my brother."

"Your brother?" Wyatt looked at her surprised. He didn't know she'd had one. He wondered how much he'd really known about Olivia, how much he really knew about any of his co-workers.

She nodded. "He started getting sick only a few hours after I did, so I don't even know if he's still alive, but if he is . . ."

"If he is, I'll help him," Wyatt promised.

"Some vacation, huh?" she mumbled. "I can't even say good-bye."

"Well, I can pass messages to Andrew and Nathan," he offered.

"They know?" she asked surprised. "Never mind. Of course they know. That day at the museum. I'm probably the only one who doesn't know what happened, aren't I?"

He shook his head. "Only Nathan found out that day. Andrew already knew and no one else there knows."

"Oh," she looked down at her feet. "So the light's really not bad?"

"It's safe," he assured her. "What's your brother's name, Olivia?"

"Colin Tunnels," she told him quickly. "Room 411B last I knew, but that was the third room they had him in, so he could have moved."

"I'll find out," he assured her. "I'll do what I can, Olivia."

"Thank you," she whispered, but her eyes were glazed and she was starting to actually look like a ghost. And then she was gone.

Wyatt exhaled slowly and looked at the body on the bed. "I'm sorry, Olivia."

* * *

Merry Christmas, everyone! Four new chapters for you guys to read. I had to fix the order, so if you missed any, the new ones are chapters 21, 24, 26, and 27. You do not have to reread the chapters in between them to understand what's going on (well, except maybe chapter 23 to know what Hank's talking about in chapter 24).

Does Olivia's brother have a chance?

The next chapter takes us back to Ladybug and Franki, but also across the ocean to meet another member of the Richmond family and find out what Simon's older sister has been up to lately. She has two major things in common with her Aunt Elisa. She monologues (although unlike Elisa she doesn't enjoy this, she just doesn't like silence) and they hate each other.


	29. Cold, Dark Nothing

First a thank you to my reviewers:

PhoenixHalliwell13 - Chris is coming soon. And I am going to try and see if I can manipulate events already written so that he wakes up in chapter twenty-nine instead of waiting. I don't think it should be too hard to manage, but we'll see. There is a line in a late chapter which I want to keep referencing Chris still being asleep and Wyatt's the one talking. I think I might make it work though. We'll see. Enjoy.

luckydarkpaige - A little faster than I was thinking this morning, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable telling you ever what I did here, so there you go. Enjoy the new chapter.

I've had an interesting time trying to keep track of time zones in this story, since I have scenes occurring in four time zones and somewhere around eight cities so far. This particular chapter has the distinction of taking place on two different continents, but don't expect much of a culture difference, the two characters in England are both Americans. That's all I will be saying about them. They've both been mentioned before, so see if you can figure out who they are.

Good luck and enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Cold, Dark Nothing

10:49 AM (12:49 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug starred at the empty circle of candles where moments before Franki's many greats grandfather had stood. "I'm not sure what to do with that info."

Franki sighed. "I'm not either," her lyrical voice declared.

"If we were looking for a way to push it off for another hundred and thirty years this would be useful," Ladybug added looking at the paper with the spell they had copied from Kirkland Owens' memory along with the various items he had used to aid in casting it.

"Might the description of the altar used be helpful?"

Ladybug nodded. "It might. The items used in a spell are as important as the words themselves. I just don't know how to use them. My mom was the spell caster in her family and I never could concentrate long enough to really learn anything.

Franki scowled. "Too bad you can't convince one of those warlocks to help you."

Ladybug snorted. "As if that's going to happen. They went to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve the dead body of a toddler and placed that body on an altar where they then laid her mother's living body and killed her mother. What kind of person does that and feels remorse later . . . almost four hundred years later, I might add."

Franki sighed. "It does sound far fetched. But strange things do happen."

"Not that strange," Ladybug scoffed. "That's insane."

* * *

10:50 AM (6:50 PM in Cambridge)

"What do you mean Tom's stage four?" Heart Gardner asked stunned. "I talked to you guys yesterday and no one said anything about Tom being stage anything, let alone stage four."

"Honey, I'm sorry," Heart's mom told him. "We didn't want to worry you."

"Not worry me?" Heart felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "My brother, my twin brother, has maybe a day to live and you didn't tell me because you didn't want to worry me?" How did that make sense to them?

"I'm sorry, son," she repeated. "It seemed like the right decision to make."

"The right . . ." he trailed off in disbelief. "You know what, I'm coming home."

"You can't!" his mom protested. "You could be infected, too. Your father and I . . ."

"No," Heart protested. "Please, tell me I misunderstood what you were trying to say just now. You and Dad can't have this, too."

There was a sigh on the other end.

Heart groaned. "No, I won't accept it. I'm coming home, Mom, and you're all going to be all right. You can't have this."

"You are not coming home, Edward Kenneth," his mom informed him making him gulp. "I will not have you getting this, too."

"Mom, people are getting sick here, too," Heart informed her. "And people seem pretty confident that this is getting passed through the water, so if I don't drink the water, I should be fine. I'm coming home."

"We love you, Edward, but you need to stay out of the way of this," his mom told him.

"There is no out of the way of this," he protested. "Mom, please, if this is going to end badly, then I need to see you, again, all of you."

"Edward, you can't get here," she told him, sadly. "There is no way. Planes aren't flying and even if you could, it would be too late by the time you got here."

"No, no, no!" he screamed at the phone, slamming his fist at the nearby wall and then squealing in pain as he pulled his fist away. He got very little satisfaction from the small dent he made in the wall. "No, that's not possible. There's got to be a way." He heaved in several sobs, trying to keep himself in control. "I'll call Ladybug." He gulped. "She has . . . Contacts. There's got to be a way. I love you, Mom."

As soon as he hung up the phone, he pressed the first number on his speed-dial, something he hadn't done in a long time.

"Twins are special, aren't they?" a voice behind Heart commented.

Startled, he turned around to look. The voice belonged to a blonde, petite and pretty, maybe a year or two older than his twenty-two years. Maybe. Deciding to ignore her, he put the phone to his ear and listened to it ring.

"I have a brother and sister who are twins," she told him, with a little half smile. "They shut me out."

Heart didn't know how to respond. As boys, he and Tom had done everything together, but they had other friends, too. With no other siblings, the scenario she described hadn't been an issue for them.

"It's not really about them being twins, of course," she admitted with a little laugh. "Our mother raised them differently than our father raised me."

Ouch. Heart couldn't imagine being raised away from Tom. He couldn't imagine life with no Tom at all as he was likely going to be facing tomorrow. The phone reached Ladybug's voice mail and he sighed.

"Feel free to jump into this conversation any time," she told him. "Monologues are boring."

Seeing no reason he should give her the satisfaction of alleviating her boredom, he hung up and called, again. It might be crazy, but he needed to talk to Ladybug. He couldn't risk that she would forget to check her voice mail for a day or two.

"Oh, come on," she pouted. "Say something. You're making me feel like the evil villain in a really bad B-list horror flick."

"Are you evil?" he asked, finally acknowledging her. He took the phone away from his ear, but didn't bother turning it off. He didn't like the idea of facing someone claiming to be evil alone even if the only person that could help him wasn't answering her phone and thus of no use.

"Of course I am," she snorted. "Otherwise I wouldn't be about to kill you."

Startled, he squeaked. "Kill me?"

"Of course," she repeated. "What kind of evil villain would I be if I let you live. Besides, it's a mercy killing really. This way you won't have to live without your brother, Don."

"Tom," he protested automatically.

She waved a hand in dismissal. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. You reek of Warren blood." She shuddered in distaste.

"What?"

She considered him and shrugged. "A girlfriend, maybe, because you are clearly not a Warren." She clucked her tongue at him. "Naughty, naughty boy." She pushed him up against the wall and stabbed her finger at his chest. "I don't like Warrens."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he protested.

"He speaks," she chuckled. "I was beginning to wonder."

He glared at her.

"And back to silence." She tapped the tips of fingers together. "So how do you want to die?"

"No thanks," he spat out, trying to duck out her reach.

She put her arms on either side of him and he found that she was definitely not weak. "You aren't going anywhere."

"I think I am," he shoved her away from him and started running. The sound of his phone dropping to the ground barely registered as his only thoughts were toward getting away from her.

A sound behind him was the only warning he got before a wall of ice built up in front of him. He sucked on a deep breath and kept running. Hitting the wall accomplished nothing except to leave his shoulder hurting and him on the ground.

"Turn around and face me," she ordered. "It's thick enough you can't get passed it."

"Why ice the exit?" he asked as he pulled himself to his feet and looked behind him. A second wall of ice was a few feet behind her. "Why . . ?"

"Why not kill you with the first blow?" she asked. "It's pretty messy and noisy. This way, you aren't getting out and I don't have to deal with someone interrupting us. Besides, I want to see someone's eyes when I kill them. I'm no coward." Now that she had him trapped, she didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. She walked over to his dropped phone and picked it up. Putting it next to her ear she said, "I'm going to kill him," she announced into the phone without bothering to find out if anyone was on the other end. "Deal with it."

Holding the phone in one hand she sent a spray of ice, covering it with ice and then dropping it to the ground and watching it shatter. "Now, we're all alone. It's much easier that way."

Glancing behind him he tried to gage how think the ice was. On the other end of it, he could see that it went partway into the next doorway and that distance was maybe a third of the total distance, even accounting for the distortion of looking at it through ice. Gulping he turned back to look at her.

There was the most peculiar look on her face. "There's something almost familiar about you, but it will have to be you, because I am not doing this, again." Holding both hands out in front of her, she sent a steady stream of ice at him.

Diving out of the way, he smashed into the wall with his already injured shoulder. Cringing and doing his best to hold back a scream of pain, he looked around the small area, attempting to locate something he could use as a weapon, though what he could do against someone who shot ice out of her hands, he didn't know.

"Hold still," she ordered. "When your brother dies, you won't want to be alive anyway, and he's going to die. This time around no one is stopping this."

He didn't waste his breath arguing. The was something on the opposite wall in a frame, but he didn't see how that would be do any good unless he could shove her into it. Unfortunately, that was the best option at his disposal at the moment.

"Why are you so quiet?" she complained, glaring at him. "You almost act like none of this matters. Or is it that? Maybe you realize that I'm right and when your brother is dead, it's all useless." She nodded slowly and a smile started to form on her lips. "All the better. If I'm doing you a favor. . ."

"You're not," he snarled, making a jump at her and running her into the wall. "Don't delude yourself into thinking that killing me is in anyway doing me any favors. I want you to feel every ounce of guilt you are owed, because I don't intend to let you kill me. And I don't plan for my brother to die, either."

"There's nothing you can do," she snapped at him, wincing in pain as she shoved him away from her into the opposite wall and sending ice at the ground. "No one's ever survived this. No one. Once they have it, that's it. Your brother will not live. Even if you somehow manage to escape me, which I doubt, don't delude yourself into thinking he will live. That's not on me."

"I don't believe you," he heaved out, looking at the ground. Except for where she stood, blood dripping onto her shoulder from a wound she had apparently gotten when he'd slammed her into the wall, the entire floor from ice wall to ice wall was caked in ice. He'd probably trip standing still, but if he could get her away from that spot, maybe she would, too.

"Believe it," she ordered, sending more ice his way. When he ducked down and went sliding at one of the ice walls she growled. "I usually can hit my targets. Why can't I hit a stupid mortal?"

He rubbed his head where it had hit into the ice and looked at her confused. Mortal?

With another growl of frustration, she aimed both palms at him and shot ice at him. "Die, already. I need you to die so that I'm done with this whole mess."

The ice hit him in the legs and as the cold started to encase him, he heard, "What in the world?!" just before he blanked out completely and oblivion took him.

* * *

10:52 AM (12:52 PM in Cortland)

Ladybug exhaled slowly. "I probably should be getting back. The sooner we figure this out the more people we can save, but I should warn you, my aunt doesn't intend to let this last past the end of the day."

"And with what Kirkland told you, it won't," Franki breathed out. "You have the means to push this back once more, but if you don't stop this now, who will? And when?"

Ladybug sighed. "I really don't know."

* * *

One more chapter completed. What do you think Heart's attacker was responding to near the end? Did you figure out who Heart is? Did you figure out who his attacker was? Both of them have been mentioned earlier in this story, although I don't think names were mentioned, so you have no way of knowing what the attacker's name was, but you still might be able to ID her.

The next chapter goes back to San Francisco and technically speaking Chris is in the chapter. Since the chapter isn't completed and he's awake in the next chapter that takes place in the manor, I will try and see if I can wake him up and give him some actual speaking lines. The problem with this story (Wyatt and Chris wise) is that the two of them have both been working a whole lot harder than most people and neither of them took the time to sleep recently, so they're asleep while everything is going on. They will both be awake soon (although, of course Wyatt is already awake). For those of you wondering where Wyatt and Chris are, the next story is very focused on them. I think about four characters appear in more than two or three chapters, although I'd have to check my outline to be sure.

Quick survey: Subtle though it may be, what difference would you expect to see in a story called "A Brother's Bond" verses one called "A Brothers' Bond"? I'm trying to figure out which title better tells what the story I am going to tell next is about. Thanks.


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